■ 


FYODOR 
DOSTOYEVSKY 

A  STUDY 


By    AIMEE    DOSTOYEVSKY 


NEW  HAVEN 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXXil 


Printed    in    Great    Britain 


PREFACE 

Russia  was  preparing  to  celebrate  the  centenary 
of  the  birth  of  Fyodor  Dostoyevsky  on  October  30,  1921. 
Our  writers  and  poets  hoped  to  do  honour  in  prose  and 
verse  to  the  great  Russian  novehst;  the  Slav  peoples 
had  arranged  to  send  deputations  to  Petrograd,  to  pay 
their  homage  in  Czech,  Serbian  and  Bulgarian  to  the 
great  Slavophil,  who  was  ever  faithful  to  the  idea  of 
our  future  Slav  confederation.  The  Dostoyevsky  family, 
in  its  turn,  proposed  to  mark  the  occasion  by  publishing 
the  documents  preserved  in  the  Historical  Museum 
of  Moscow.  My  mother  was  to  have  given  the  world 
her  memories  of  her  illustrious  husband,  and  I  was  to 
have  written  a  new  biography  of  my  father,  and  to  have 
recorded  my  childish  impressions  of  him. 

It  is  unlikely  that  any  such  festival  will  take  place. 
A  terrible  storm  has  passed  over  Russia,  destroying 
the  whole  fabric  of  our  European  civilisation.  The 
Revolution,  long  ago  predicted  by  Dostoyevsky,  burst 
upon  us  after  a  disastrous  war.  The  gulf  which  for 
two  centuries  had  been  widening  between  our  peasants 
and  our  intellectuals,  became  an  abyss.  Our  intellec- 
tuals, intoxicated  by  European  Utopias,  were  advancing 
towards  the  West,  while  our  people,  faithful  to  the 
tradition  of  their  ancestors,  had  set  their  faces  to  the 
East.  The  Russian  Nihilists  and  Anarchists  desired 
to  introduce  European  atheism  into  our  country, 
whereas  our  deeply  religious  peasantry  remained  faithful 
to  Christ. 

The  result  of  this  conflict  is  now  before  us.     The 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I.  ORIGIN    OF   THE   DOSTOYEVSKY   FAMILY      .             .            1 

II.  THE   CHILDHOOD    OF   FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY       .          18 

III.  ADOLESCENCE            ......         27 

\IV.  FIRST   STEPS  .......         38 

Kv.  THE   PETRACHEVSKY   CONSPIRACY      ...          52 

VI.  PRISON    LIFE               ......          62 

VII.  WHAT   THE   CONVICTS   TAUGHT    DOSTOYEVSKY     .          72 

VIII.  DOSTOYEVSKY   A   SOLDIER          ....          83 

IX.  DOSTOYEVSKY's    first    MARRIAGE      ...          91 

X.  A    PASSIONATE   EPISODE  .             .             .             .             .103 

XI.  A   LITERARY   FRIENDSHIP             ....       113 

XII.  DOSTOYEVSKY   AS   HEAD    OF   HIS   FAMILY  .             .       117 

XIII.  MY    mother's   FAMILY   AND   ITS    ORIGIN     ,  .       124 

XIV.  MY   mother's   GIRLHOOD  .             .             .             .134 
XV.  THE   BETROTHAL      .             .             .             .             .             .141 

XVI.  DOSTOYEVSKY's    SECOND    MARRIAGE              .             .       148 

XVII.  TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  :    FIRST    PART   .             .             .153 

XVIII.  TRAVELS   IN    EUROPE  :    SECOND    PART            .             .160 

XIX.  THE   RETURN    TO    RUSSIA             ....       169 

XX.  LITTLE   ALEXEY        .             .             .             .             .             .175 

XXI.  "THE   JOURNAL  OF   THE    WRITER"    .             .            .       182 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

XXII,  DOSTOYEVSKY   IN   HIS   HOME               .             .             .       189 

XXIIT.  DOSTOYEVSKY   AS   A   FATHER              .             .             .199 

XXIV.  DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TURGENEV         .             .             .       207 

XXV.  DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY             .             .              .218 

XXVI.  DOSTOYEVSKY   THE   SLAVOPHIL         .             .             .       230 

XXVII.  COUNTESS   ALEXIS   TOLSTOY'S   SALON         .             .       238 

XXVni.  THE   PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL           ....       247 

XXIX.  THE   LAST   YEAR   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY's    LIFE         .       258 

XXX.  DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY        ....       268 


ORIGIN   OF   THE   DOSTOYEVSKY   FAMILY 

"  I  know  our  people.  I  have  lived  with  them  in  prison,  eaten 
with  them,  slept  with  them,  worked  with  them.  The  people  gave 
me  back  Christ,  whom  I  learned  to  know  in  my  father's  house, 
but  whom  I  lost  later,  when  I  in  my  turn  became  '  a  European 
Liberal.'  "—August,  1880. 

In  reading  biographies  of  my  father,  I  have  always 
been  surprised  to  find  that  his  biographers  have  studied 
him  solely  as  a  Russian,  and  sometimes  even  as  the 
most  Russian  of  Russians.  Now  Dostoyevsky  was 
Russian  only  on  his  mother's  side,  for  his  paternal  ances- 
tors were  of  Lithuanian  origin.  Of  all  lands  in  the 
Russian  Empire,  Lithuania  is  certainly  the  most  interest- 
ing by  reason  of  its  transformations  and  the  various 
influences  it  has  undergone  in  the  course  of  centuries. 
The  Lithuanian  breed  is  the  same  mixture  of  Slavs 
and  Finno-Turkish  tribes  as  the  Russian.  Yet  there 
is  a  very  marked  difference  between  the  two  peoples. 
Russia  remained  long  under  the  Tatar  yoke,  and  became 
mongolised.  Lithuania,  on  the  other  hand,  was  nor- 
manised  by  the  Normans,  who  traded  with  Greece  by 
the  waterways  of  the  Niemen  and  the  Dnieper.  Finding 
this  trade  highly  profitable,  the  Normans  established 
vast  mercantile  depots  in  Lithuania,  and  placed  them 
under  the  guard  of  sentinels.  Gradually  these  depots 
were  transformed  into  fortresses,  and  the  fortresses 
into  towns.  Some  of  these  towns  exist  to  this  day, 
as,  for  instance,  the  town  of  Polozk,  which  was  governed 
by  the  Norman  prince  Rogvolod.  The  whole  country 
was   divided   into   a   number   of   small   principalities; 


2  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

the  population  was  Lithuanian,  the  government  Norman. 
Perfect  order  reigned  in  these  principaHties,  and  excited 
the  envy  of  the  neighbouring  Slav  peoples.^ 

The  Normans  did  not  hold  aloof  from  the  Lithuanians ; 
the  princes  and  their  followers  married  readily  among 
the  women  of  the  country,  and  were  gradually  merged 
with  the  original  inhabitants.  Their  Norman  blood 
gave  such  vigour  to  the  hitherto  insignificant  Lithuanians 
that  they  overcame  the  Tatars,  the  Russians,  the 
Ukrainians,  the  Poles,  and  the  Teutonic  Knights,  their 
northern  neighbours.  In  the  fifteenth  century  Lithuania 
had  become  an  immense  Grand  Duchy,  which  com- 
prised all  Ukrainia  and  a  large  part  of  Russia.  It  played 
a  very  great  part  among  the  other  Slav  countries,  had 
a  brilliant,  highly  civilised  Court,  and  attracted  numerous 
foreigners  \of  distinction,  poets  and  men  of  learning. 
The  Russian  Boj^ards  who  opposed  the  tyranny  of  their 
Tsars  fled  to  Lithuania  and  were  hospitably  received 
there.     This   was   the   case   of  the   celebrated    Prince 


1  This  envy  led  the  Slavs  who  inhabited  the  shores  of  the 
Dnieper,  and  were  the  ancestors  of  the  Ukrainians  and  Russians, 
to  desire  Norman  princes  to  rule  over  them  in  their  turn.  They 
sent  a  deputation  to  Lithuania  to  offer  Prince  Rurik  the  crown 
of  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Kiew.  Rurik,  probably  the  brother  or 
the  younger  son  of  some  Norman  prince  who  was  governing  a 
part  of  Lithuania,  accepted  the  crown  and  went  to  Kiew  with  his 
Norman  retinue.  The  descendants  of  Rurik  reigned  in  Russia 
until  the  seventeenth  century,  first  under  the  title  of  Grand  Duke, 
and  later  under  that  of  Tsar.  When  the  last  descendant  of  Rurik 
died  at  Moscow,  Russia  passed  through  a  period  of  anarchy,  until 
the  Boyards  elected  as  Tsar  Mihail  Romanoff,  whose  family 
was  of  Lithuanian  origin — that  is  to  say,  a  strongly  normanised 
Slav  family.  In  their  turn  the  Romanoffs  reigned  for  several 
centuries,  loved  and  venerated  by  the  Russian  people.  The 
curious  fact  that  the  Russian  nation  has  twice  chosen  as  princes 
Normans  or  normanised  Slavs,  is  readily  explained  by  the  dis- 
putatious character  of  my  countrymen.  Interminable  talkers 
and  controversialists,  capable  of  holding  forth  for  a  dozen  hours 
on  end  without  uttering  a  single  sensible  word,  the  Russians 
can  never  agree.  The  Normans,  clear-headed  and  practical, 
sparing  of  words  but  prolific  in  deeds,  made  them  live  in  peace 
one  with  another,  and  kept  order  in  our  country. 


ORIGIN  OF  DOSTOYEVSKY   FAMILY    3 

Kurbsky,   the    mortal    enemy   of   the    Tsar   Ivan    the 
Terrible.i 

The  Normans  were  ruHng  in  Lithuania  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era,  and  perhaps  before.  We  find 
them  still  in  power  in  1392,  in  the  person  of  the 
Grand  Duke  Witold,  who,  as  his  name  indicates,  was  a 
descendant  of  the  Norman  princes.  It  is  obvious  that 
Lithuania  must  have  become  profoundly  normanised 
in  the  course  of  fourteen  centuries.  To  say  nothing  of 
the  marriages  contracted  by  the  princes  and  the  members 
of  their  retinue,  the  numerous  merchants  and  warriors 
who  came  to  Lithuania  from  the  North  readily  took 
to  wife  young  Lithuanians,  w^ho,  thanks  to  their  Slav 
blood,  are  handsomer  and  more  graceful  than  the  women 
of  Finno-Turkish  tribes  in  general.  The  offspring  of 
these  marriages  inherited  the  Lithuanian  type  of  their 
mothers,  and  the  Norman  brains  of  their  paternal 
ancestors.  Indeed,  when  we  examine  the  Lithuanian 
character,  we  recognise  its  strong  reseinblance  to  the 
Norman  character.  I  recommend  to  those  who  wish 
to  study  this  practically  unknown  country,  Lithuania, 
Past  and  Present,  by  W.  St.  Vidunas.  I  shall  often  have 
occasion  to  quote  this  learned  writer,  but  his  excellent 
study  should  be  read  in  its  entirety.  A  curious  fact 
in  connection  with  Vidimas's   book  is  that  while  he 

1  Modern  historians  who  deal  mth  the  history  of  Lithuania 
and  Ukrainia  rarely  mention  the  Normans.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  often  speak  of  the  Varangians,  and  assert  that  the  latter 
played  an  important  part  in  Lithuania,  and  even  in  Ukrainia. 
Now  the  Varangians  are  in  fact  Normans,  for  the  word  Varangian 
means  in  old  Slav  "  enemy."  As  the  Normans  always  beat  the 
Slavs,  the  latter  called  them  the  "  enemies."  Slavs  have  as  a 
rule  but  little  curiosity,  and  are  not  concerned  to  know  the  race 
to  which  their  neighbours  belong ;  they  prefer  to  give  them  fancy 
names.  Thus  when  the  Russians  began  to  trade  with  the  Germans 
they  called  them  "  Nemzi,"  which  in  old  Russian  means  "  the 
Dumb,"  because  the  Germans  did  not  understand  their  language 
and  could  not  answer  their  questions.  The  Russian  people 
still  call  the  Germans  "  Nemzi."  The  name  German  or  Teuton 
is  used  only  by  the  intellectuals. 


4  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

describes  the  Lithuanian  character  as  essentially  Norman, 
he  ignores  the  Norman  blood  of  his  compatriots,  and 
declares  ingenuously  that  they  are  merely  Finno-Turks, 
who  came  originally  from  Asia.  The  author  here  adopts 
the  attitude  of  the  majority  of  the  Lithuanians,  who, 
under  the  influence  of  some  perverted  sense  of  national 
pride,  have  always  repudiated  their  Norman  ancestors.^ 

Instead  of  glorying  in  their  descent,  as  the  wise 
Rumanians  glory  in  their  descent  from  the  ancient 
warriors  of  Rome,  the  Lithuanians  have  always  tried 
to  pass  off  their  Norman  Grand  Dukes  as  princes  of 
native  blood.  The  Russians  have  never  been  deceived 
on  this  point.  They  knew  that  the  Lithuanians  were 
too  weak  to  beat  them,  and  were  only  able  to  do  so 
with  the  help  of  the  Normans.  This  is  why  my  com- 
patriots have  always  given  all  these  Gediminas,  Algardas 
and  Vitantas  their  true  Norman  names  of  Guedimine, 
Olguerd  and  Witold.  The  Poles  and  the  Germans 
have  done  the  same,  and  the  Norman  princes  have  passed 
into  history  under  their  real  names,  to  the  great  annoy- 
ance of  all  the  Lithuanophils.  Guedimin  was  the  most 
famous  of  these  princes.  He  was  of  the  true  Norman 
type,  almost  without  any  trace  of  Finno-Turkish  blood. 
His  portraits  always  remind  me  of  those  of  Shakespeare ; 
there  is  a  family  likeness  between  these  two  Normans. 
Guedimin  showed  the  characteristic  Norman  indifference 
and  tolerance  in  religious  matters;  he  protected  both 
Catholic  and  Orthodox.  For  his  own  part,  he  preferred 
to  remain  a  pagan. 

As  Russia  and  Ukrainia  became  stronger,  they  suc- 
ceeded in  severing  their  connection  with  Lithuania  and 
recovering    their    former    independence.     When    they 

^  In  their  hatred  of  Russia  and  of  Poland,  the  Lithuanians 
have  even  refused  to  admit  that  they  have  Slav  blood  in  their 
veins.  Yet  one  has  only  to  look  at  them  to  see  that  they  are  much 
more  Slav  than  Finno-Turkish. 


ORIGIN   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY   FAMILY     5 

had  lost  their  rich  provinces  to  the  cast  and  the  south, 
the  Lithuanians  were  enfeebled,  and  could  no  longer 
struggle  against  their  mortal  enemies,  the  Knights  of 
the  Teutonic  Order.  The  Germans  conquered  Lithuania, 
and  introduced  into  the  country  a  host  of  mediaeval 
institutions  and  ideas.  These  the  Lithuanians  retained 
for  a  long  time  when  they  had  entirely  disappeared 
from  the  rest  of  Europe.  The  Germans  forced  the 
Lithuanians  to  become  Protestants.  Like  all  Slavs, 
the  Lithuanians  were  mystics,  and  Luther's  religion 
meant  nothing  to  them.^ 

When  at  a  later  period  Poland  had  become  a  power- 
ful state  in  its  turn,  and  had  wrested  Lithuania  from 
the  Teutonic  Knights,^  the  Lithuanians  hastened  to 
return  to  the  Catholic  or  Orthodox  faith  of  their 
ancestors.  The  Polish  Catholic  clergy,  especially  the 
Jesuits,  warred  passionately  against  the  Orthodox 
monastic  houses;  but  these  were  protected  by  many 
Lithuanian  families,  who  preferred  the  Orthodox 
religion.  Among  these  were  some  very  influential 
personalities,  notably  Prince  Constantine  Ostrogesky, 
the  celebrated  champion  of  the  Orthodox  Church.  In 
face  of  this  determined  resistance  the  Poles  were  obliged 
to  leave  the  Orthodox  religious  houses  in  the  country, 
placing  them,  however,  under  the  supervision  of  noble 

^  The  Finns,  the  Esthonians  and  the  Letts,  who  are  Finno- 
Turks  of  unmixed  race,  adopted  the  Protestant  rehgion  with 
ardour  and  remained  faithful  to  it.  The  hostihty  the  Lithuanians 
have  always  shown  to  Protestantism  attests  their  Slav  blood 
more  eloquently  than  all  else.  The  Slavs,  who  readily  embraced 
the  Orthodox  or  the  Catholic  faith,  have  never  been  able  to 
understand  the  doctrine  of  Luther. 

2  The  Germans,  however,  kept  a  part  of  Lithuania,  which  was 
inhabited  by  the  Lithuanian  tribe  of  the  Borussi.  They  ger- 
manised  it  and  christened  it  Prussia.  The  Prussians  are  not 
Germans,  but  Lithuanians,  first  normanised  and  then  germanised. 
Their  strength  of  character  and  the  important  part  they  have 
played  in  Germany  are  due  to  their  Norman  blood.  The  majority 
of  the  Prussian  Junkers  are  the  direct  descendants  of  the  ancient 
Norman  chiefs. 


6  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

Catholic  families,  in  order  to  check  Orthodox  propaganda. 
The  Jesuits  organised  excellent  Latin  schools,  forced 
the  nobility  of  the  country  to  send  their  sons  to  them, 
and  in  a  short  time  succeeded  in  latinising  all  the  young 
nobles  of  Lithuania.  Poland,  wishing  to  attach  the 
Lithuanians  to  herself  definitively,  introduced  among 
them  many  Polish  institutions,  including  the  Schliahta, 
or  Union  of  Nobles.  The  Schliahtitchi  (nobles)  adopted 
the  custom  of  rallying  to  the  banner  of  some  great 
lord  of  the  country  in  time  of  war,  and  lived  under 
his  protection  in  time  of  peace.  These  lords  allowed 
the  Schliahtitchi  to  adopt  their  armorial  bearings.  Later, 
Russia,  who  had  borrowed  numerous  institutions  from 
Lithuania,  imitated  the  Schliahta  by  creating  the  Union 
of  Hereditary  Nobles.  Among  the  Russians,  this  Union 
was  agrarian  rather  than  martial ;  but  in  both  countries 
the  Unions  were  above  all  patriotic. 

My  father's  ancestors  were  natives  of  the  Government 
of  Minsk,  where,  not  far  from  Pinsk,  there  is  still  a 
place  called  Dostoyeve,  the  ancient  domain  of  my 
father's  family.  It  was  formerly  the  wildest  part  of 
Lithuania,  covered  almost  entirely  with  vast  forests; 
the  marshes  of  Pinsk  extended  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  reach.  The  Dostoyevsky  were  Schliahtitchi  and 
belonged  to  the  "  grassy  Radwan."  That  is  to  say, 
they  were  nobles,  they  went  to  war  under  the  banner 
of  the  Lord  of  Radwan,  and  had  the  right  to  bear  his 
arms.  My  mother  had  the  Radwan  armorial  bearings 
drawn  for  the  Dostoyevsky  Museum  at  Moscow.  I  have 
seen  them,  but  I  cannot  describe  them,  as  I  have  never 
studied  heraldry. 

The  Dostoyevsky  were  Catholics,  very  devout  and 
very  intolerant,  it  seems.  In  the  course  of  our  researches 
into  the  origin  of  our  family,  we  found  a  document, 
in   which   an   Orthodox   monastery   placed   under   the 


ORIGIN  OF  DOSTOYEVSKY  FAMILY    7 

supervision  of  the  Dostoyevsky  family  complained 
of  their  harsh  treatment  of  the  Orthodox  monks.  This 
document   proves   two   things : 

1.  That  the  Dostoyevsky  must  have  held  a  good 
position  in  their  country,  otherwise  an  Orthodox  monas- 
tery would  not  have  been  placed  under  their  supervision. 

2.  That  as  fervent  Catholics,  the  Dostoyevsky  must 
have  sent  their  sons  to  the  Latin  schools  of  the  country, 
and  that  my  father's  ancestors  must  have  possessed 
that  excellent  Latin  culture  which  the  Catholic  clergy 
propagate  wherever  they  go. 

When  in  the  eighteenth  century  the  Russians  annexed 
Lithuania,  they  did  not  find  the  Dostoyevsky  in  the 
country;  the  family  had  passed  into  Ukrainia.  What 
they  did  there  and  what  towns  they  inhabited  we 
know  not.  I  have  no  idea  what  my  great  grandfather 
Audrey  may  have  been,  and  this  for  a  very  curious 
reason. 

The  fact  is  that  my  grandfather  Mihail  Andrevitch 
Dosto3'^evsky  was  a  highly  original  person.  At  the  age 
of  fifteen  he  had  a  mortal  quarrel  with  his  father  and  his 
brothers,  and  ran  away  from  home.  He  left  the  Ukraine, 
and  went  to  study  medicine  at  Moscow  University.  He 
never  spoke  of  his  family,  and  made  no  reply  when 
questioned  as  to  his  origin.  Later,  when  he  had  reached 
the  age  of  fifty,  his  conscience  seems  to  have  reproached 
him  for  having  thus  quitted  the  paternal  roof.  He 
put  an  advertisement  in  the  papers,  begging  his  father 
and  his  brothers  to  let  him  hear  from  them.  No  notice 
was  ever  taken  of  this  advertisement.  It  is  probable 
that  his  relations  were  all  dead.  The  Dostoyevsky  do 
not  make  old  bones. 

However,  my  grandfather  Mihail  must  have  declared 
his  origin  to  his  children,  for  I  often  heard  my  father, 


8  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

and  later  my  uncles  say :  "  We  Dostoyevsky  are 
Lithuanians,  but  we  are  not  Poles.  Lithuania  is  a 
country  quite  distinct  from  Poland." 

My  father  told  my  mother  of  a  certain  Episcopus 
Stepan,  who,  according  to  him,  was  the  founder  of  our 
Orthodox  family.  To  my  great  regret,  my  mother  did 
not  pay  much  attention  to  these  words  of  her  husband's, 
and  did  not  ask  him  for  more  precise  details.  I  suppose 
that  one  of  my  Lithuanian  ancestors,  having  emigrated 
to  the  Ukraine,  changed  his  religion  in  order  to  marry 
an  Orthodox  Ukrainian,  and  became  a  priest.  When 
his  wife  died  he  probably  entered  a  monastery,  and 
later,  rose  to  be  an  Archbishop. ^ 

This  would  explain  how  the  Archbishop  Stepan  may 
have  founded  our  Orthodox  family,  in  spite  of  his  being 
a  monk.  My  father  must  have  been  convinced  of  the 
existence  of  this  Episcopus,  for  he  named  his  second 
son  Stepane  in  his  honour. 

At  this  time  Dostoyevsky  was  fifty  years  old.  It  is 
very  curious  that  my  grandfather  published  his  adver- 
tisement in  the  newspaper  when  he  reached  this  age, 
and  that  it  was  also  at  the  age  of  fifty  that  my  father 
suddenly  remembered  the  existence  of  the  Archbishop 
Stepan.  Both  seem  to  have  felt  a  wish  to  strengthen 
the  bonds  of  union  with  their  ancestors  at  this  period. 

It  is  somewhat  surprising  to  see  the  Dostoyevsky,  who 
had  been  warriors  in  Lithuania,  become  priests  in  the 
Ukraine.  But  this  is  quite  in  accordance  with  Lithu- 
anian custom.  I  may  quote  the  learned  Lithuanian 
W.  St.  Vidunas  in  this  connection  :  ^ 

"  Formerly  many  well-to-do  Lithuanians  had  but 
one  desire  :   to  see  one  or  more  of  their  sons  enter  upon 

^  In  the  Orthodox  Church  only  monks — the  Black  Clergy — 
may  become  Archbishops.  The  White  Clergy — married  priests — 
never  rise  to  high  rank.  When  they  lose  their  wives  they  often 
become  monks,  and  can  then  pursue  their  career. 

^  See  his  La  Lituanie  dans  le  passe  et  dans  le  present. 


ORIGIN   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY   FAMILY     9 

an  ecclesiastical  career.  They  gladly  provided  the  funds 
necessary  to  prepare  them  for  such  a  calling.  But 
they  had  no  sympathy  with  studies  of  a  more  general 
character,  and  were  averse  from  the  adoption  of  any 
other  liberal  profession  by  the  sons.  Even  of  late  years 
many  young  Lithuanians  have  had  to  suffer  greatly 
from  parental  obstinacy.  Their  fathers  have  refused 
them  the  money  necessary  for  advanced  secular  studies, 
when  they  have  declined  to  become  ecclesiastics.  Thus 
many  lives  of  the  highest  promise  have  been  wrecked." 

These  words  of  Vidunas  probably  give  the  key  to 
the  extraordinary  quarrel  of  my  grandfather  Mihail 
with  his  parents,  which  broke  all  the  ties  between  our 
Moscovite  family  and  the  Ukrainian  family  of  my  great- 
grandfather Audrey.  The  latter  perhaps  wished  his 
son  to  pursue  an  ecclesiastical  career,  while  the  young 
man  had  a  vocation  for  medicine.  Seeing  that  his  father 
would  not  pay  for  his  medical  studies,  my  grandfather 
fled  from  his  home.  We  must  admire  the  truly  Norman 
energy  of  this  youth  of  fifteen  who  entered  an  unknown 
city  without  money  or  friends,  managed  to  get  a  superior 
education,  made  a  good  position  for  himself  in  Moscow, 
brought  up  a  family  of  seven  children,  gave  dowries 
to  his  three  daughters  and  a  liberal  education  to  his 
four  sons.  My  grandfather  had  good  reason  to  be  proud 
of  himself,  and  to  quote  himself  as  an  example  to  his 
children. 

Andrey  Dostoyevsky's  wish  to  see  his  son  a  priest  was 
not,  indeed,  very  extraordinary,  for  the  Ukrainian  clergy 
has  always  been  highly  distinguished.  The  Ukrainian 
parishes  enjoyed  the  right  to  select  their  own  priests, 
and  naturally  only  men  of  blameless  life  were  chosen. 
As  to  the  higher  ecclesiastical  dignities,  they  were  nearly 
always  held  by  members  of  the  Ukrainian  nobility, 
which  was  very  rarely  the  case  in  Greater  Russia,  where 
the  priests  are  an  isolated  caste.     Stepan  Dostoyevsky 


10  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

must  have  been  a  man  of  good  family  and  good  education 
or  he  could  not  have  become  an  Episcopus.  The  Arch- 
bishop or  Episcopus  is  the  highest  dignity  in  the  Orthodox 
Church,  for  we  have  no  Cardinals.  After  the  abolition 
of  the  Patriarchate,  the  Archbishops  managed  the 
affairs  of  our  church,  each  in  turn  taking  part  in  the 
deliberations  of  the  Holy  Synod. 

We  have  yet  another  proof  that  the  Ukrainian 
Dostoyevsky  were  intellectuals.  Friends  who  had  lived 
in  Ukrainia  told  us  that  they  had  once  seen  there  an 
old  book,  a  kind  of  Almanach  or  poetical  Anthology 
published  in  Ukrainia  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  Among  the  poems  in  this  book  there  was  a 
little  bucolic  piece  written  in  Russian  and  gracefully 
composed.  It  was  not  signed,  but  the  first  letters  of 
each  line  formed  the  name  Andrey  Dostoyevsky.  Was 
it  the  work  of  my  great-grandfather  or  of  some  cousin  ? 
I  know  not,  but  it  proves  two  things  of  great  interest 
to  the  biographers  of  Dostoyevsky  : 

1.  First,  that  his  Ukrainian  ancestors  were  intellec- 
tuals, for  in  Ukrainia  only  the  lower  and  middle  classes 
speak  Ukrainian,  a  pretty  and  poetic,  but  also  an  infan- 
tile and  somewhat  absurd  language.  The  upper  classes 
in  Ukrainia  habitually  spoke  Polish  or  Russian,  and 
accordingly  last  year,  when  the  country  separated  from 
Russia  and  proclaimed  its  independence,  the  new 
Hetman,  Scoropadsky,  had  to  post  up  eloquent  appeals, 
which  said  :  "  Ukrainians  !  learn  your  native  tongue  !  " 
The  Hetman  himself  probably  did  not  know  a  word  of  it. 

2.  That  poetic  talent  existed  in  my  father's  Ukrainian 
family  and  was  not  the  gift  of  his  Moscovite  mother, 
as  Dostoyevsky's  literary  friends  have  suggested. 

The  interesting  and  varied  history  of  Lithuania  had 
a  great  influence  in  the  formation  of  my  father's  powers. 
We  find  in  his  works  traces  of  all  the  transformations 


ORIGIN  OF  DOSTOYEVSKY  FAMILY     11 

Lithuania  has  undergone  in  the  course  of  centuries. 
My  father's  character  was  essentially  Norman  :  very 
honest,  very  upright,  frank  and  bold.  Dostoyevsky 
looked  danger  in  the  face,  never  drew  back  before  peril, 
pressed  on  to  his  goal  unweariedly,  brushing  aside  all 
the  obstacles  in  his  path.  His  normanised  ancestors  had 
bequeathed  to  him  an  immense  moral  strength  which 
is  rarely  found  among  Russians,  a  young,  and  conse- 
quently a  weak  race.  Other  European  nations  also 
contributed  to  the  formation  of  Dostoyevsky's  genius. 
The  Knights  of  the  Teutonic  Order  gave  to  his  ancestors 
their  idea  of  the  State  and  of  the  family. 

In  Dostoyevsky's  works,  and  still  more  in  his  private 
life,  we  find  innumerable  mediaeval  ideas.  In  their  turn 
the  Catholic  clergy  of  Lithuania,  the  leaders  of  whom 
came  from  Rome,  taught  my  father's  ancestors  discipline, 
obedience,  and  a  sense  of  duty,  which  can  hardly  be 
said  to  exist  in  the  youthful  and  anarchic  Russian 
nation.  The  Latin  Schools  of  the  Jesuits  formed  their 
minds.  Dostoyevsky  learned  to  speak  French  very 
quickly,  and  preferred  it  to  German,  though  he  knew 
German  so  well  that  he  proposed  to  his  brother  Mihail 
that  they  should  collaborate  in  translating  Goethe  and 
Schiller.  My  father  had  evidently  the  gift  of  languages, 
which  is  very  rare  among  the  Russians.  Europeans 
generally  say  :  "  The  Russians  can  speak  all  tongues." 
They  do  not,  however,  notice  that  those  among  my 
compatriots  who  speak  and  write  French  and  German 
well  all  belong  to  Polish,  Lithuanian  and  Ukrainian 
families,  whose  ancestors  were  latinised  by  the  Catholic 
clergy.  Among  the  Russians  of  Great  Russia,  it  is 
only  the  aristocrats  who  have  had  a  European  education 
for  several  generations  who  speak  the  European  languages 
well. 

The  Russian  bourgeois  find  the  study  of  foreign 
languages   enormously   difficult.     They  learn   them   at 


12  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

school  for  seven  years,  and  when  they  leave  can  barely 
manage  to  say  a  few  sentences,  and  do  not  understand 
the  simplest  books.  Their  accent  is  deplorable.  The 
Russian  language,  which  has  hardly  anything  in  common 
with  the  European  tongues,  is  rather  a  hindrance  than 
a  help  to  linguistic  studies. 

The  emigration  of  my  ancestors  to  Ukrainia  softened 
their  somewhat  harsh  Northern  character,  and  awoke 
the  dormant  poetry  of  their  hearts.  Of  all  the  Slav 
countries  which  form  the  Russian  Empire,  Ukrainia  is 
certainly  the  most  poetic.  When  one  comes  from 
Petrograd  to  Kiew,  one  feels  oneself  in  the  South. 
The  evenings  are  warm,  the  streets  full  of  pedestrians 
who  sing,  laugh,  and  eat  in  the  open  air,  at  tables  on 
the  pavement  outside  the  cafes.  We  breathe  the  per- 
fumed air  of  the  South,  we  look  at  the  moon  which 
silvers  the  poplars;  the  heart  dilates,  one  becomes  a 
poet  for  the  moment.  Ever3'thing  breathes  poetry  in 
this  softly  undulating  plain  bathed  in  happy  sunshine. 
Blue  rivers  flow  serene  and  unhasting  seawards;  little 
lakes  sleep  softly,  girdled  by  flowers ;  it  is  good  to  dream 
in  the  rich  forests  of  oak.  All  is  poetry  in  Ukrainia  : 
the  costumes  of  the  peasants,  their  songs,  their  dances, 
and  above  all  their  theatre.  Ukrainia  is  the  only 
country  in  Europe  which  possesses  a  theatre  created  by 
the  people  themselves  and  not  arranged  by  the  intel- 
lectuals to  develop  the  taste  of  the  masses,  as  else- 
where. The  Ukrainian  theatre  is  so  essentially  popular 
that  it  has  not  even  been  possible  to  make  a  bourgeois 
theatre  of  it.  In  early  days  Ukrainia  was  in  close 
contact  with  the  Greek  colonies  on  the  shores  of  the 
Black  Sea.  Some  Greek  blood  flows  in  the  veins  of 
the  Ukrainians,  manifesting  itself  in  their  charming 
sunburnt  faces  and  their  graceful  movements.  It  may 
even  be  that  the  Ukrainian  theatre  is  a  distant  echo  of 
the  drama  so  beloved  of  the  ancient  Greeks. 


ORIGIN   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY  FA^IILY     13 

Emerging  from  the  dark  forests  and  dank  marshes 
of  Lithuania,  my  ancestors  must  have  been  dazzled  by 
the  hght,  the  flowers,  the  Greek  poetry  of  Ukrainia. 
Their  hearts  warmed  by  the  southern  sunshine, 
they  began  to  write  verses.  My  grandfather  Mihail 
carried  a  httle  of  this  Ukrainian  poetry  in  his  poor 
student's  wallet  when  he  fled  from  his  father's  house, 
and  kept  it  carefully  as  a  souvenir  of  his  distant  home. 
Later,  he  handed  it  on  to  his  two  elder  sons,  Mihail 
and  Fyodor.  These  youths  composed  verses,  epitaphs 
and  poems;  in  his  youth  my  father  wrote  Venetian 
romances  and  historical  dramas.  He  began  by  imitating 
Gogol,  the  great  Ukrainian  writer,  whom  he  greatly 
admired.  In  Dostoyevsky's  first  works  we  note  a  good 
deal  of  this  naive  sentimental  and  romantic  poetry. 
It  was  not  until  after  his  imprisonment,  when  he  became 
Russian,  that  we  find  in  his  novels  the  breadth  of  view 
and  depth  of  thought  proper  to  the  Russian  nation, 
the  nation  of  great  genius  and  a  great  future.  And  yet 
it  is  not  right  to  say  that  Dostoyevsky's  powerful 
reahsm  is  essentially  Russian.  The  Russians  are  not 
realists ;  they  are  dreamers  and  mj'stics.  They  love 
to  lose  themselves  in  visions  instead  of  studying  life. 
When  they  try  to  be  reahsts,  they  fall  at  once  into 
Mongolian  c}Tiicism  and  eroticism.  Dostoyevsky's  real- 
ism is  an  inheritance  from  his  ndrmanised  ancestors".  ■ 
All  -^Titers  of  Norman  blood  are  distinguished  by  their 
profound  reahsm.  It  was  not  for  nothing  that  Dos- 
toyevsky  admired  Balzac  so  heartily,  and  took  him 
as  his  model. 

The  Dostoyevsky  family  was  essentially  a  family 
of  nomads.  We  find  them  now  in  Lithuania,  now  in 
Ukrainia,  now  domiciled  in  Moscow,  now  in  Petersburg. 
This  is  not  surprising,  for  Lithuania  is  distinguished  from 
other  countries  by  its  curious  class  of  "  nomad  intel- 
lectuals."    In  all  other  countries  it  is  the  proletariat 


14  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

which  emigrates.  In  Russia,  the  moujiks,  who  cross 
the  Ural  Mountains  in  hordes  every  year  and  are  absorbed 
by  Asia;  in  Europe,  the  peasants  and  lower  middle 
classes  who  go  to  seek  their  fortune  in  America,  Africa 
and  Australia.  In  Lithuania,  the  populace  remained | 
in  the  country;  only  the  intellectuals  emigrated.! 
As  long  as  Lithuania  was  a  brilliant  Grand  Duchy 
attracting  European  poets  and  learned  men,  the  Lithu- 
anian nobility  stayed  at  home.  But  when  the  splendour 
of  Lithuania  began  to  wane,  the  intellectuals  ^  soon 
felt  themselves  circumscribed  in  their  forests  and 
swamps  and  emigrated  to  neighbouring  nations.  They 
entered  the  service  of  the  Poles  and  the  Ukrainians, 
and  helped  to  build  up  their  civilisation.  A  great 
number  of  famous  Poles  and  Ukrainians  are  of  Lithuanian 
origin.^ 

Later,  when  Russia  annexed  Lithuania,  a  horde  of 
Lithuanian  families  descended  upon  our  large  towns. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  Poles 
in  their  turn  entered  the  service  of  Russia,  but  my  com- 
patriots very  soon  noted  the  difference  between  the 
Polish  and  the  Lithuanian  "  sky."  ^ 

Though  the  Poles  lived  and  grew  rich  in  Russia,  they 
remained  Catholics,  spoke  Polish  among  themselves, 
and  treated  the  Russians  as  barbarians.  The  Lithu- 
anians, on  the  other  hand,  forgot  their  mother-tongue, 

^  Critics  may  accuse  me  of  confounding  the  words  "  noble  " 
and  "  intellectual,"  which  are  not  alway  synonymous.  But 
they  must  remember  that  in  the  good  old  times  education  was 
impossible  for  the  proletariat  and  the  middle  classes.  The 
Catholic  and  Orthodox  clergy,  who  were  the  principal  educationists 
of  Lithuania,  were  only  interested  in  the  sons  of  the  nobility, 
the  future  legislators  and  governors  of  their  country. 

^  It  is  thought  that  the  great  Polish  poet  Mickiewicz  was  a 
Lithuanian.     One  of  his  poems  begins  : 

"  Lithuania,  my  coimtry." 

3  "  Sky  "  is  the  termination  of  the  names  of  the  Polish  and 
Lithuanian  nobihty. 


ORIGIN   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY   FAMILY     15 

adopted  the  Orthodox  faith,  and  thought  no  more  of 
their  native  land.^ 

This  migration  of  the  intellectuals,  and  their  facility 
in  amalgamating  with  the  nations  of  their  adoption,  is  the 
most  characteristic  feature  bequeathed  by  the  Normans 
to  their  Lithuanian  posterity.  The  Normans  alone 
among  the  nations  of  antiquity  possessed  a  nomad 
nobility.  The  young  men  of  the  highest  families  rallied 
to  the  banner  of  some  Norman  prince,  and  sailed  in 
their  light  vessels  to  seek  new  homes.  It  is  generally 
asserted  that  all  the  aristocracies  of  northern  Europe 
were  founded  by  the  Normans.  There  is  nothing  sur- 
prising in  this  :  when  the  young  Norman  nobles  appeared 
among  some  primitive  people,  they  naturally  became 
the  chiefs  of  the  wild  and  ignorant  aborigines.  Their 
descendants,  accustomed  to  govern,  continued  to  do  so 
throughout  successive  centuries.  The  Normans,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  did  not  hold  aloof  from  the  nations 
they  conquered ;  they  married  the  women  of  the  country, 
and  adopted  its  ideas,  its  costume  and  its  beliefs.  Two 
centuries  after  their  arrival  in  Normandy,  the  Normans 
had  forgotten  their  native  tongue,  and  spoke  French 
to  each  other.  When  William  the  Conqueror  landed  in 
England  with  his  warriors,  the  culture  he  brought  to 
the  English  was  a  Latin,  and  not  a  Norman  culture. 
When  the  Norman  family  of  the  Comtes  d'  Hauteville 
conquered  Sicily,  they  adopted  the  Byzantine  and  Sara- 
cen culture  they  found  in  that  country  with  amazing 
rapidity.  In  Lithuania  there  was  a  complete  fusion 
of   invaders    with   invaded;     the    Normans    gave    the 

^  Among  the  great  Russian  families  of  Lithuanian  origin,  we 
must  note  more  especially  the  Romanoffs,  the  ancestors  of  the 
late  reigning  family,  who  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  the  Borussi ; 
the  Soltikoffs,  whose  Lithuanian  name  was  Saltyk ;  and  the 
Golitzins,  the  descendants  of  Duke  Guedunin.  In  Poland,  the 
majority  of  the  aristocratic  families  were  of  Lithuanian  origin, 
as  well  as  the  royal  house  of  Jagellon. 


16  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Lithuanians  their  moral  strength,  and  bequeathed  to 
them  the  mission  of  civihsing  neighbouring  peoples. 
All  the  nomad  intellectuals  of  Lithuania  are,  in  fact, 
but  Normans  in  disguise.  They  continue  the  great 
work  of  their  ancestors  with  unfailing  courage,  patience 
and  devotion. 

It  is  obvious  that  poor  Lithuania,  who  gives  the  flower 
of  her  race  to  others,  can  never  become  a  great  state 
again.  She  understands  and  regrets  this  herself. 
"  The  Lithuanians  must  be  accounted  in  general  a 
most  intelligent  race,"  says  Vidunas;  "that  in  spite 
of  this,  Lithuania  has  exercised  no  influence  on  European 
civilisation,  is  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  Lithu- 
anian intelligence  has  been  perpetually  at  the  service 
of  other  nations,  and  has  never  been  able  to  put  forth 
all  its  powers  in  its  native  land."  Vidunas  is  no  doubt 
right  when  he  deplores  the  emigration  of  the  Lithuanian 
intellectuals,  but  he  is  mistaken  when  he  says  that 
Lithuania  has  had  no  influence  on  European  civilisation. 
No  country,  indeed,  has  done  so  much  for  the  civilisation 
of  the  Slav  states  as  Lithuania.  Other  peoples  worked 
for  themselves  alone,  for  their  own  glory;  Lithuania 
has  devoted  the  gifts  of  her  intelligence  to  the  service 
of  her  neighbours.  Poland,  Ukrainia  and  Russia  do 
not  understand  this  yet,  and  are  unjust.  But  the  day 
will  come  when  they  will  see  clearly  what  a  huge  debt 
they  owe  to  modest  and  silent  Lithuania. 

The  Dostoyevsky  were  such  wanderers,  they  had  such 
a  thirst  for  new  ideas  and  new  impressions,  that  they 
tried  to  forget  the  past,  and  refused  to  talk  to  their 
children  of  their  forbears.  But  while  thus  renouncing 
the  past,  they  had  a  desire  to  link  their  wandering 
family  by  a  kind  of  Ariadne's  thread.  This  thread, 
which  enables  us  to  trace  them  throughout  the  centuries, 
is  their  family  name  Audrey.  The  Catholic  Dostoyevsky 
of  Lithuania  habitually  gave  this  name  to  one  of  their 


ORIGIN   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY  FAMILY     17 

sons,  generally  to  the  second  or  the  third;  and  the 
Orthodox  Dostoyevsky  have  kept  up  the  custom  till 
the  present.  In  each  generation  of  our  family  there 
is  always  an  Andrey,  and,  as  before,  this  name  is  borne 
by  the  second  or  the  third  son. 


II 

THE    CHILDHOOD    OF   FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

After  completing  his  medical  studies  at  Moscow,  my 
grandfather  Mihail  entered  the  army  as  a  surgeon, 
and  in  this  capacity  served  during  the  war  of  1812. 
We  may  assume  that  he  was  well  skilled  in  his  profession, 
for  he  was  soon  appointed  superintendent  of  a  large 
State  hospital  in  Moscow.  About  this  time  he  married 
a  young  Russian  girl,  Marie  Netchaiev.  She  brought  a 
sufficient  dowry  to  her  husband,  but  the  marriage  was 
primarily  one  of  mutual  love  and  esteem.  The  young 
couple,  indeed,  lacked  nothing,  for  in  those  days  govern- 
ment appointments  were  fairly  lucrative.  If  salaries 
were  not  very  high,  the  State  made  amends  by  providing 
its  functionaries  with  all  the  requisites  of  a  comfortable 
existence.  Thus,  in  addition  to  his  income,  my  grand- 
father Mihail  was  lodged  in  a  Crown  building,  a  small 
house  of  one  storey,  built  in  the  bastard  Empire  style 
which  was  adopted  for  all  our  Crown  buildings  in  the 
nineteenth  century.  This  house  was  situated  close  to 
the  hospital  and  was  surrounded  by  a  garden.  In  this 
little  house  Fyodor  Dostoyevsky  was  born  on  October  80, 
1821. 

My  grandfather  was  allowed  the  services  of  the 
servants  attached  to  the  hospital,  and  a  carriage  to 
visit  his  patients  in  the  town.  He  must  have  had  a 
good  practice,  for  he  was  soon  able  to  buy  two  estates 
in  the  government  of  Tula,  150  versts  from  Moscow. 
One  of  these  properties,  called  Darovoye,  became  the 
holiday  residence  of  the  Dostoyevsky.  The  whole 
family,   with   the  exception   of  the  father,   spent   the 

18 


CHILDHOOD   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY      19 

summer  there.  My  grandfather,  who  was  kept  in  the 
city  by  his  medical  duties,  only  joined  them  for 
a  few  days  in  July.  These  annual  journeys,  which  in 
those  pre-railway  days  were  made  in  a  troika  (a  carriage 
with  three  horses),  delighted  my  father,  who  was 
devoted  to  horses  in  his  childhood. 

A  few  years  after  the  birth  of  his  elder  sons,  my 
grandfather  had  himself  registered  together  with  them 
in  the  book  of  the  hereditary  nobility  of  Moscow.^ 
My  father  was  five  years  old  at  the  time.  It  is  strange 
that  my  grandfather,  who  had  all  his  life  held  aloof 
from  the  Moscovites,  should  have  wished  to  place  his 
family  under  the  protection  of  the  Russian  nobility. 
It  is  probable  that  he  recognised  in  it  the  Lithuanian 
SchUahta  of  which  the  Russian  Union  of  Nobles  is, 
in  fact,  an  imitation.^  As  of  old  his  ancestors  had 
placed  their  sons  under  the  banner  of  the  united  Lithu- 
anian nobility,  so  my  grandfather  hastened  to  place 
his  children  under  the  protection  of  the  united  Russian 
nobility. 

As  a  Moscovite  noble  my  grandfather  remained 
morally  a  Lithuanian  Schliahtitch — proud,  ambitious,  and 
very  European  in  many  of  his  ideas.  He  was  econo- 
mical almost  to  the  verge  of  niggardliness ;  but  in  the 
matter  of  the  education  of  his  sons  he  did  not  grudge 
expense.  He  began  by  placing  his  two  boys  in  the 
French  school  of  Suchard.  As  Latin  was  not  taught 
in  this  establishment,  my  grandfather  undertook  the 
Latin  lessons  himself.  When  they  came  home,  his 
sons  prepared  their  French  lessons,  and  in  the  evening 

^  No  one  could  be  registered  in  the  books  of  the  nobility  unless 
they  possessed  titles  of  hereditary  nobility.  The  Russian  nobles 
willingly  admitted  to  their  unions  Polish,  Lithuanian,  Ukrainian, 
Baltic  and  Caucasian  nobles. 

2  In  the  eighteenth  century  the  Russians  still  called  their 
hereditary  nobility  Schliahetstvo.  This  word  is  no  longer  current, 
and  the  majority  of  the  Russian  nobles  are  unaware  that  their 
institution  of  hereditary  nobUity  is  of  Lithuanian  origin. 


20  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

did  Latin  exercises  with  their  father.  They  never 
ventured  to  sit  down  in  his  presence,  and  conjugated 
their  verbs  standing,  trying  not  to  make  mistakes,  and 
greatly  in  awe  of  their  teacher.  My  grandfather  was 
very  severe;  but  his  children  never  received  corporal 
punishment.  This  is  the  more  remarkable,  as  the  little 
Moscovites  of  the  period  were  very  vigorously  chastised. 
Tolstoy  has  told  us  in  his  recollections  of  childhood  how 
he  was  beaten  at  the  age  of  twelve.  It  is  evident  that 
my  grandfather  Mihail  had  European  ideas  of  educa- 
tion. Thanks  to  their  proximity  to  Poland  and  Austria, 
Lithuania  and  Ukrainia  were  much  more  civilised  than 
Russia.  In  later  years,  when  Dostoyevsky  recalled  his 
childhood,  he  would  say  to  his  younger  brothers, 
Audrey  and  Nicolai,  that  their  parents  were  remarkable 
people,  more  advanced  in  their  ideas  than  the  majority 
of  their  contemporaries. 

Like  many  Lithuanians  whose  ancestors  were  latinised 
by  the  Catholic  clergy,  my  grandfather  had  an  affection 
for  the  French  tongue.  He  talked  French  with  his 
wife,  and  encouraged  his  children  to  express  themselves 
in  that  language.  To  please  him,  my  grandmother 
made  his  sons  and  daughters  write  their  good  wishes 
on  their  father's  birthday  in  French.  She  corrected 
their  mistakes  on  the  rough  drafts,  and  the  children 
then  made  fair  copies  on  ornamental  sheets  of  paper. 
On  the  day  of  the  anniversary,  they  marched  up  to 
their  father  in  turns,  and  blushingly  presented  the  rolls 
of  paper,  tied  up  with  a  coloured  ribbon.  My  grand- 
father unfolded  them,  read  the  artless  congratulations 
aloud  with  emotion,  and  kissed  the  little  writers.  Later, 
his  elder  sons  were  not  content  with  good  wishes;  to 
please  their  father  they  learned  French  poems  by 
heart  and  recited  them  to  their  parents  in  the  presence 
of  their  brothers  and  sisters.  My  father  once  recited 
a   fragment   of    the   Henriade  at   a  family  festivity. 


CHILDHOOD    OF  DOSTOYEVSKY      21 

Dostoyevsky  inherited  his  father's  liking  for  French; 
French  phrases  occur  frequently  in  his  novels  and 
newspaper  articles. ^  He  read  a  great  deal  of  French, 
and  very  little  German,  although  he  knew  the  language 
well.  At  that  period,  German  was  not  fashionable  in 
Russia.  But  my  father  did  not  forget  it;  German 
must  have  been  retained  intact  in  some  cell  of  his 
brain,  for  as  soon  as  he  passed  the  Prussian  frontier 
he  at  once  began  to  speak  German,  and,  according  to 
my  mother,  he  spoke  it  fluently. 

When  his  elder  sons  had  finished  their  course  at  the 
Suchard  school,  my  grandfather  placed  them  at  the 
preparatory  school  of  Tchermack,  the  best  private 
school  in  Moscow,  an  expensive  establishment  frequented 
by  the  sons  of  the  intellectuals  of  the  city.  In  order 
that  they  might  prepare  their  lessons  under  the  super- 
intendence of  their  teachers,  my  grandfather  sent  them 
as  boarders,  and  they  came  home  only  on  Sundays  and 
festivals.  The  Moscovite  nobles  of  this  period  preferred 
to  send  their  children  to  private  schools,  for  in  the 
Crown  institutions  the  most  severe  corporal  punishment 
was  inflicted.  The  school  of  Tchermack  was  of  a 
patriarchal  character,  and  the  arrangements  were 
modelled  on  those  of  family  life.  M.  Tchermack  dined 
with  his  pupils,  and  treated  them  kindly,  as  if  they 
were  his  sons.  He  got  the  best  masters  in  Moscow  to 
give  lessons  in  his  school,  and  the  work  done  there  was 
of  a  high  order. 

^  The  writer  Strahoff,  a  great  friend  of  my  father's,  says  in 
his  reminiscences  that  he  preferred  tallying  of  serious  things  to 
Dostoyevsky,  and  did  not  Uke  to  hear  his  jests,  for,  according  to 
him,  Dostoyevsky  always  jested  a  la  frangaise.  The  play  of 
words  and  images  which  is  the  essence  of  French  wit  is  not 
appreciated  by  my  compatriots,  m^io  like  more  solid  pleasantries. 
Strahoff  considered  that  Dostoyevsky  jested  a  la  frangaise  not 
only  in  conversation,  but  in  his  writings.  This  was,  no  doubt, 
the  result  of  a  certain  hereditary  latinisation  of  the  mind  in 
Dostoyevsky. 


22  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

My  grandfather  dreaded  the  brutaHty  of  the  Mos- 
covite  lower  orders,  and  never  allowed  his  children  to 
walk  in  the  streets.  "  We  were  sent  to  school  in  our 
father's  carriage,  and  fetched  home  in  the  same  way," 
my  uncle  Andrey  once  told  me.  My  father  knew  so 
little  of  his  native  city  that  there  is  not  a  single  descrip- 
tion of  Moscow  in  any  of  his  novels.  Like  many  Poles 
and  Lithuanians,  my  grandfather  despised  the  Russians, 
and  was  prejudiced  enough  to  look  upon  them  as  bar- 
barians. The  only  Moscovites  he  received  in  his  house 
were  his  wife's  relations.  Later,  when  my  father  went 
from  Petersburg  to  Moscow,  he  met  only  his  relatives. 
There  were  no  friends  of  childhood,  no  old  comrades  of 
his  father's  to  visit. 

If  my  grandfather  distrusted  Russian  civilisation,  he 
was  careful  not  to  say  so  before  his  children.  He 
brought  them  up  after  the  European  fashion ;  that  is  to 
say,  he  strove  to  awaken  and  foster  patriotism  in  their 
hearts.  In  his  Journal  of  the  Writer,  Dostoyevsky 
relates  that  when  he  was  a  child  his  father  was  fond  of 
reading  episodes  of  Karamzin's  Russian  history  aloud 
in  the  evenings,  and  explaining  them  to  his  young  sons.^ 
Sometimes  he  would  take  his  children  to  visit  the  historic 
palaces  of  the  Kremlin  and  the  cathedrals  of  Moscow. 
These  excursions  had  all  the  importance  of  great 
patriotic  solemnities  in  the  eyes  of  his  sons. 

It  is  also  possible  that  in  thus  holding  aloof  from  the 
Moscovites,  my  grandfather  gave  way  to  that  segre- 
gating instinct  so  characteristic  of  the  Lithuanians. 
"  The  Lithuanian  is  attracted  by  solitude,"  wrote 
Vidunas;  "he  likes  to  live  to  himself.  Solitude  is  a 
refuge  to  him."     This  curious  shyness  of  the  Lithuanians 

1  Karamzin's  History  of  Russia  was  my  father's  favourite 
book.  He  read  and  re-read  it  in  his  childhood  till  he  finally  knew 
it  by  heart.  This  was  very  remarkable,  for  in  Russia  not  only 
the  children  but  the  grown-up  persons  know  very  little  of  the 
history  of  their  country. 


CHILDHOOD   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY      23 

is  probably  a  growth  of  their  soil.  The  Russians  and 
Ukrainians,  inhabitants  of  vast  plains,  have  been  able 
to  found  large  villages,  to  go  to  market  in  the  neigh- 
bouring towns,  to  meet  other  villagers,  to  enter  into 
relations  with  them  and  so  to  become  sociable  and 
hospitable.  The  great  forests  and  wide  marshes  of 
Lithuania  have  prevented  the  development  of  large 
villages.  The  few  houses  it  was  possible  to  build  on  an 
oasis  of  firm  ground  formed  but  a  single  family,  which, 
owing  to  the  impracticable  roads,  was  unable  to  visit 
the  inhabitants  of  the  adjacent  oases.  Living  thus  in 
isolation,  the  Lithuanians  became  unsociable.  These 
temperamental  defects,  the  growth  of  centuries,  take 
centuries  to  correct,  even  in  those  who  have  long  lived 
in  a  different  country  and  under  different  conditions.^ 
The  Lithuanians  are  as  a  rule  excellent  husbands  and 
fathers.  They  are  only  happy  in  their  homes;  but 
loving  it  so  dearly,  they  are  apt  to  become  jealous  of 
their  wives  and  children,  and  to  wish  to  withdraw 
them  from  outside  influences.  My  grandfather,  when 
he  shut  up  his  sons  in  a  kind  of  artificial  Lithuania  in 
the  heart  of  Moscow,  did  not  realise  how  difficult  such 
an  education  would  make  life  for  the  boys,  who,  after 
all,  were  Russians,  and  had  to  work  among  their  com- 
patriots. Happily,  my  grandfather  at  least  provided 
good  companions  for  his  children  in  their  domestic 
prison;  in  the  evenings  of  the  festivals,  all  the  family 
assembled  in  the  drawing-room  and  read  the  works  of 
the  great  Russian  writers  aloud  in  turns.  At  the  age 
of  fifteen  my  father  was  familiar  with  the  majority  of 

1  The  Lithuanians  never  forget  their  forests;  they  continue 
to  adore  them  even  when  they  have  quitted  them  for  generations. 
In  his  Journal  of  the  Writer  Dostoyevsky  says  :  "  All  my  life  I 
have  loved  the  forest,  with  its  mushrooms,  its  fruits,  its  insects, 
its  birds  and  its  squirrels ;  I  revelled  in  the  scent  of  its  damp 
leaves.  Even  at  this  moment  as  I  write  I  can  smell  the  aroma 
of  the^birches." 


24  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

our  masterpieces.  The  children  were  accustomed  to 
recite  the  poems  they  had  learnt.  Sometimes  competi- 
tions in  recitation  were  arranged  between  the  boys. 
My  father  and  his  brother  Mihail  learned  Russian 
poems  by  heart,  and  the  parents  decided  which  of  them 
had  recited  best.  My  grandmother  took  a  great  interest 
in  her  children's  reading.  She  was  a  pretty,  gentle 
creature,  devoted  to  her  family,  and  absolutely  sub- 
missive to  her  husband.  She  was  delicate;  her 
numerous  confinements  had  greatly  exhausted  her.^ 
She  had  to  lie  in  bed  for  days  together,  and  loved  then 
to  hear  her  sons  recite  her  favourite  poems.  The  two 
elder  boys,  Mihail  and  Fyodor,  worshipped  her.  When 
she  died,  while  still  a  young  woman,  they  mourned 
most  bitterly,  and  composed  her  epitaph  in  verse.  My 
grandfather  had  her  effigy  carved  on  the  marble  monu- 
ment he  erected  to  her  memory. 

In  accordance  with  the  fashion  of  the  day,  my  grand- 
father had  portraits  of  himself  and  his  wife  painted  by 
a  Moscow  artist.  My  grandmother  is  represented  in 
the  costume  and  head-dress  of  1830,  young,  pretty  and 
happy.  Her  father  was  a  Russian  of  Moscow,  yet  she 
has  the  Ukrainian  type.  Possibly  her  mother  was  a 
Ukrainian. 2  It  was,  perhaps,  her  origin  which  first 
attracted  my  grandfather  and  led  to  his  marriage  with 
this  daughter  of  Moscow.  His  portrait  shows  him  in 
a  gala  uniform,  richly  embroidered  with  gold.     At  this 

^  My  grandparents  had  eight  children,  four  sons  and  four 
daughters.  One  of  these,  twin-sister  to  my  aunt  Vera,  was 
stillborn.  My  grandmother  had  only  been  able  to  nurse  one  of 
her  children,  her  eldest  son  Mihail,  whom  she  loved  above  all 
the  rest.  The  remaining  children  were  suckled  by  nurses  chosen 
among  the  peasant-women  of  the  country  roiuid  Moscow. 

'  She  belonged  to  the  family  of  Kotelenitsky,  a  name  which  is 
often  met  with  in  Ukrainia.  They  were  a  family  of  intellectuals ; 
my  grandmother's  uncle,  Vassil  Kotelenitsky,  was  a  professor  at 
the  University  of  Moscow.  He  had  no  children,  was  very  fond 
of  his  great-nephews,  and  often  invited  my  father  and  his  brothers 
to  spend  long  days  in  his  house  at  Novinskoye. 


CHILDHOOD   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY      25 

period,  everything  in  Russia  was  militarised.  Doctors 
in  the  service  of  the  State  were  not  allowed  to  dress  in 
mufti,  but  had  to  wear  uniform  and  a  sword.  In 
Dostoyevsky's  memory,  his  father  figured  as  a  military 
man,  the  more  so  because  my  grandfather,  who  had 
begun  life  as  an  army  surgeon,  always  retained  the 
military  bearing  of  an  officer.  He  had  the  characteristic 
Lithuanian  type;  his  four  sons  were  all  very  like  him. 
My  father's  eyes,  however,  were  brown,  true  Ukrainian 
eyes,  and  he  had  the  kindly  smile  of  his  Russian  mother. 
He  was  livelier,  more  passionate  and  more  enterprising 
than  his  brothers.  His  parents  called  him  "  the  hot- 
head." He  was  not  proud,  and  had  none  of  that 
disdain  for  the  proletariat  which  is  often  shown  by 
Poles  and  Lithuanians.  He  loved  the  poor,  and  felt 
a  keen  interest  in  their  lives.  There  was  an  iron  gate 
between  my  grandfather's  private  garden  and  the  great 
garden  of  the  hospital,  where  the  convalescents  were 
sent  to  walk.  The  little  Dostoyevsky  were  strictly 
forbidden  to  go  to  this  gate;  my  grandparents  dis- 
trusted the  manners  and  behaviour  of  the  lower  class 
Moscovites.  All  the  children  obeyed  the  injunction, 
with  the  exception  of  my  father,  who  would  steal  up 
to  the  gate  and  enter  into  conversation  with  the  con- 
valescent peasants  and  small  tradespeople,  braving 
the  wrath  of  his  father.  During  the  summer  visits  to 
Darovoye,  my  father  made  friends  with  the  serfs  belonging 
to  his  parents.  According  to  my  uncle  Audrey,  his 
brother  Fyodor's  greatest  pleasure  was  to  make  himself 
useful  to  the  poor  peasant-women  who  were  working 
in  the  fields. 

My  grandparents  were  very  religious.  They  often 
went  to  church,  taking  their  children  with  them.  My 
father  recalls  in  his  works  the  immense  impression 
made  upon  him  by  the  readings  from  the  Bible  which 
he  heard  in  church.     My  grandfather's  faith  had  httle 


26  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

in  common  with  the  mystical,  hysterical  and  tearful 
faith  of  the  Russian  intellectuals.  My  compatriots 
complain  incessantly  of  the  trials  life  brings  to  all; 
they  accuse  God  of  harshness,  revile  Him,  and  shake 
their  fists  at  Heaven,  like  foolish  children.  The 
Lithuanian  faith  of  my  grandfather  was  that  of  a 
mature  people  which  had  suffered  and  struggled.  The 
Jesuits,  perhaps,  and  also  the  Teutonic  Knights  taught 
the  Lithuanians  to  respect  God  and  bow  to  His  will. 
Their  descent  from  pious  Ukrainians,  who  looked  upon 
the  ecclesiastical  career  as  the  noblest  and  most  dignified 
of  human  callings,  inclined  the  Dostoyevsky  family  to 
love  God,  and  made  them  eager  to  draw  near  to  Him. 
It  was  with  such  ideals  as  these  that  my  grandfather 
brought  up  his  young  wife  and  his  sons  and  daughters. 
A  childish  memory  was  deeply  impressed  on  my  father's 
mind.  One  spring  evening  at  Moscow  the  door  of  the 
drawing-room  where  all  the  family  was  assembled  was 
thrown  open,  and  the  bailiff  of  the  Darovoye  estate 
appeared  on  the  threshold.  "  The  domain  has  been 
burnt,"  he  announced  in  a  tragic  voice.  At  the  first 
moment  my  grandparents  believed  that  they  were 
entirely  ruined;  but  instead  of  lamenting,  they  knelt 
down  before  the  icons  and  prayed  God  to  give  them 
strength  to  bear  the  trial  He  had  sent  them.  What 
an  example  of  faith  and  resignation  they  gave  their 
children,  and  how  often  my  father  must  have  remem- 
bered this  scene  during  the  course  of  his  stormy  and 
unhappy  life  ! 


Ill 

ADOLESCENCE 

When  his  elder  sons  had  finished  their  term  at  Tcher- 
mack's  preparatory  school,  my  father  took  them  to 
Petersburg.  He  did  not  intend  to  make  doctors  of 
them ;  he  wished  them  to  embark  on  a  military  career, 
which  at  this  period  had  brilliant  possibilities  for  the 
intelligent.  In  Russia  every  official  had  a  right  to  ask 
for  free  education  for  his  sons  at  one  of  the  State  schools. 
My  grandfather,  a  practical  man,  chose  the  School  of 
Military  Engineers,  with  a  double  end  in  view  :  on 
leaving,  a  pupil  might  become  an  officer  in  a  regiment 
of  the  Imperial  Guard,  and  have  a  splendid  career,  or 
he  might  become  a  civil  engineer  and  amass  a  con- 
siderable fortune.  My  grandfather  Mihail  was  very 
ambitious  for  his  sons,  and  perpetually  reminded  them 
that  they  must  work  incessantly.  "  You  are  poor," 
he  would  say;  "I  cannot  leave  you  a  fortune;  you 
have  only  your  own  powers  on  which  to  rely;  you 
must  work  hard,  be  strict  in  your  conduct,  and  prudent 
in  your  words  and  deeds." 

At  this  time  my  father  was  sixteen,  and  my  uncle 
Mihail  seventeen.  Brought  up  as  they  had  been 
always  under  the  paternal  eye,  knowing  nothing  of  life, 
and  possessing  no  friends  of  their  own  age,  they  were 
nothing  but  two  big  ciiildren,  artless  and  romantic. 
There  was  a  passionate  affection  between  the  two 
brothers.  They  lived  in  a  world  of  dreams,  reading  a 
great  deal,  exchanging  their  literary  impressions,  and 
ardently  admiring  the  works  of  Pushkin,  their  common 
ideal.     When  they  started  for  Petersburg  they  did  not 

27 


28  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

realise  that  their  childhood  was  over,  that  they  were 
entering  a  new  world. ^ 

During  the  journey  from  Moscow  to  Petersburg, 
which  lasted  several  days,^  the  young  Dostoyevsky 
continued  to  dream.  "  My  brother  and  I,"  says  my 
father,  "  dreamed  of  the  great  and  the  beautiful.  These 
words  sounded  magnificent  to  us.  We  used  them 
without  irony.  How  many  fine  words  of  the  same 
order  we  repeated  in  those  days  !  We  had  a  passionate 
belief  in  I  know  not  what,  and,  although  we  knew  all 
the  difficulties  of  mathematical  examinations,  we  could 
only  think  of  poetry  and  poets.  My  brother  wrote 
poems,  and  I  was  writing  a  Venetian  romance." 

A  great  misfortune  awaited  the  young  dreamers  at 
Petersburg.  Though  he  had  obtained  two  nominations 
for  his  sons  at  the  School  of  Engineers,  my  grandfather 
was  only  able  to  place  his  son  Fyodor  there.  Mihail 
was  pronounced  too  delicate  to  study  in  the  capital, 
and  the  authorities  sent  him  with  some  other  youths 
to  Reval,  where  the  School  of  Engineers  had  a  kind 
of  annexe.  My  father's  despair  at  this  separation  from 
his  adored  brother  was  immeasurable.  He  suffered 
the  more  because,  when  his  father  had  returned  to 
Moscow  he  was  left  utterly  alone,  without  friends  or 

^  My  uncle  Andrey  tells  us  in  his  reminiscences  that  my  grand- 
father never  allowed  his  sons  to  go  out  alone  and  never  gave  them 
any  money.  He  watched  over  their  conduct  most  jealously ;  no 
flirtation,  even  of  the  most  innocent  kind,  was  tolerated.  These 
young  Puritans  never  dared  to  speak  of  women  save  in  verse. 
Of  course,  their  modesty  must  have  been  a  source  of  great  amuse- 
ment to  their  comrades  in  the  School  of  Engineers,  for  the 
amorous  adventures  of  the  young  Russian  begin  early.  Dos- 
toyevsky, for  his  part,  must  have  suffered  a  good  deal  froni  the 
cynicism  of  his  young  comrades.  When  in  The  Brothers  Kara- 
mazov  my  father  described  Aliosha  stopping  his  ears  in  order 
not  to  hear  the  obscene  talk  of  his  schoolfellows,  he  was  probably 
drawing  on  his  own  experiences. 

2  There  were  no  railways  in  those  days.  Travellers  went  by 
the  stage-coach,  or  in  a  troika,  which  often  took  nearly  a  week 
to  get  from  Moscow  to  Petersburg. 


ADOLESCENCE  29 

relations.  He  was  a  boarder,  and,  as  he  knew  no  one 
in  the  city,  he  had  to  spend  all  his  holidays  at  school. ^ 
The  School  of  Engineers  was  in  the  ancient  palace  of 
Paul,  where  the  unhappy  Emperor  had  been  murdered. 
It  is  in  the  best  quarter  of  the  town,  opposite  the  Summer 
Garden,  on  the  banks  of  the  Fontanka  river.  The 
rooms  are  large  and  light,  full  of  air  and  sunshine.  One 
could  have  wished  no  better  domicile  for  one's  children ; 
as  a  doctor  my  grandfather  realised  the  important  part 
played  by  space  and  light  in  the  physical  education  of 
young  people.  Nevertheless,  my  father  was  not  happy 
at  the  Engineers'  Castle. ^  He  disliked  the  life  in 
common  with  the  other  pupils,  and  the  mathematical 
sciences  he  had  to  study  were  repellent  to  his  poetic 
soul.  Obedient  to  his  father's  wishes,  he  did  his  work 
conscientiously,  but  his  heart  was  not  in  it.  He  spent 
his  spare  time  seated  in  the  embrasure  of  a  window, 
watching  the  flowing  river,  admiring  the  trees  of  the 
park,  dreaming  and  reading.  .  .  .  Scarcely  had  he 
quitted  his  father's  house,  when  the  Lithuanian  un- 
sociability took  possession  of  him;  he  felt  himself 
attracted  by  solitude.  His  new  companions  did  not 
attract  him.  They  were  for  the  most  part  the  sons  of 
colonels  ^  and  generals,  who  were  commanding  the 
garrisons    in    the    various    provincial   towns.     At    this 

1  When  he  placed  his  son  at  school  in  Petersburg,  my  grand- 
father had  counted  on  the  kindness  of  his  relative,  General 
Krivopichin,  who  held  an  important  administrative  post.  But 
Krivopichin  dishked  his  Moscow  kinsman,  and  would  do  nothing 
for  his  son.  However,  after  the  death  of  my  grandfather,  the 
General  remembered  his  obligations;  he  went  to  see  my  father 
at  the  School  of  Engineers,  and  invited  him  to  his  house.  Dos- 
toyevsky,  who  was  eighteen  by  this  time,  soon  became  a  favourite 
with  all  the  Krivopichin  family,  of  whom  he  speaks  affectionately 
in  his  letters  to  his  brother  Mihail. 

2  This  was  the  name  by  which  the  School  of  Engineers  was 
known  in  Petersburg.  The  Palace  of  Paul  does,  in  fact,  look  like 
an  ancient  castle. 

3  My  grandfather's  position  at  Moscow  was  equivalent  to  that 
of  a  colonel. 


30  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

period  there  was  little  reading  in  the  provinces,  and 
even  less  thinking.  It  was  difficult  to  find  a  serious 
book  there,  though  one  could  always  reckon  on  a  bottle 
of  champagne  of  a  good  brand.  People  drank  a  great 
deal,  played  very  high,  flirted,  and,  above  all,  danced 
with  passion.  The  parents  paid  very  little  attention 
to  their  children,  and  left  them  to  the  care  of  servants. 
My  father's  new  companions  were  like  young  animals, 
full  of  gaiety,  loving  to  laugh,  and  run,  and  play.  They 
made  fun  of  the  serious  airs  of  their  Moscow  school- 
fellow, and  his  passion  for  reading.  Dostoyevsky,  for 
his  part,  despised  them  for  their  ignorance ;  they  seemed 
to  him  to  belong  to  another  world.  This  was  not 
surprising.  My  father  was  several  centuries  ahead  of 
his  Russian  companions.  "  I  was  struck  by  the  foolish- 
ness of  their  reflections,  their  games,  their  conversation 
and  their  occupations,"  he  wrote  later.  "  They 
respected  nothing  but  success.  All  that  was  righteous, 
but  humiliated  and  persecuted,  called  forth  their  cruel 
mockery.  At  the  age  of  sixteen,  they  talked  of  nice 
little  lucrative  situations.  Their  vice  amounted  to 
monstrosity."  As  he  observed  his  schoolfellows,  Dos- 
toyevsky felt  his  father's  Lithuanian  disdain  for  the 
Russians  awaking  in  his  heart,  the  contempt  of  a  civilised 
individual  for  brutes  and  ignoramuses.^ 

1  Although  he  despised  them,  my  father  never  east  off  his 
companions.  Former  pupils  at  the  School  of  Engineers  remember 
that  he  was  always  ready  to  protect  new  pupils  when  they 
arrived,  helping  them  with  their  lessons,  and  defending  them 
against  the  tyranny  of  the  elder  boys.  General  Savelieff,  who 
at  this  period  was  a  young  officer  acting  as  superintendent  of  the 
classrooms,  states  in  his  recollections  that  the  school  authorities 
considered  Dostoyevsky  a  young  man  of  high  culture,  with  great 
strength  of  character  and  a  deep  sense  of  personal  dignity.  He 
obeyed  the  orders  of  his  superiors  readily  enough,  but  declined 
to  bow  to  the  decrees  of  his  elder  comrades,  and  held  aloof  from 
all  their  demonstrations.  This  was  a  very  characteristic  trait, 
for  in  Russian  schools  boys  as  a  rule  show  more  deference  to  their 
elders  than  to  their  masters. 


ADOLESCENCE  31 

My  father,  however,  found  a  friend  at  last.  This 
was  the  young  Grigorovitch,  who,  Hke  himself,  was 
only  half  a  Russian;  his  maternal  grandmother  was  a 
Frenchwoman.  She  took  a  great  interest  in  her  grand- 
son's education,  and  made  him  a  well-informed  young 
man.  Gay  and  sociable  as  the  French  generally  are, 
Grigorovitch  was  ready  enough  to  play  with  his  school- 
fellows, but  he  preferred  the  society  of  my  father. 
There  was  a  bond  of  union  between  them  :  both  were 
writing  in  secret,  and  dreaming  of  becoming  novelists. ^ 

His  friendship  with  young  Grigorovitch  did  not  make 
my  father  forget  his  brother  Mihail.  They  corresponded 
constantly ;  some  of  their  letters  have  been  published. 
In  these  they  speak  of  Racine,  Corneille,  Schiller  and 
Balzac,  recommend  interesting  books  to  each  other, 
and  exchange  their  literary  impressions.  My  uncle  took 
advantage  of  his  term  at  Reval  to  study  the  German 
language  thoroughly.  Later  he  translated  several  of 
the  works  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  his  translations 
were  much  appreciated  by  the  Russian  public. 

Letters  from  the  young  Dostoyevsky  to  their  father 
have  also  been  published.  They  are  very  respectful, 
but  as  a  rule  contain  nothing  but  requests  for  money. 
My  grandfather  was  not  loved  by  his  children.  This 
Lithuanian,  who  had  so  many  good  qualities,  had  also 
one  great  defect :  he  was  a  hard  drinker,  violent  and 
suspicious  in  his  cups.  As  long  as  his  wife  was  there 
to  intervene  between  him  and  the  children  all  was  well ; 
she  had  considerable  influence  over  him,  and  prevented 
him   from   drinking   to   excess.     After   her   death   my 

^  My  father  had  another  friend  at  this  period,  the  young 
Schidlovsky,  his  former  schoolfellow  at  Tchermack's.  For  some 
reason  unknown  to  me,  Schidlovsky  travelled  a  great  deal, 
going  sometimes  to  Reval,  sometimes  to  Petersburg.  He  acted 
as  bearer  of  dispatches  to  the  young  Dostoyevsky.  Schidlovsky 
was  a  poet,  an  idealist  and  a  mystic.  He  had  a  great  influence 
on  my  father.     He  was  probably  of  Lithuanian  origin. 


32  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

grandfather  gave  way  to  his  weakness,  became  incapable 
of  working,  and  resigned  his  appointment.  Having 
placed  his  younger  sons,  Andrey  and  Nicolai,  at  Tcher- 
mack's  school,  and  having  married  his  eldest  daughter 
Barbara  to  a  native  of  Moscow,  he  retired  to  Darovoye 
and  devoted  himself  to  agriculture.  He  took  his  two 
younger  daughters,  Vera  and  Alexandra,  with  him,  and 
led  them  a  terrible  life.  At  this  time  it  was  usual  to 
bring  up  girls  under  the  superintendence  of  their  parents. 
The  instruction  given  them  was  not  very  extensive  : 
French,  German,  a  little  piano-playing  and  dancing, 
fancy  needlework.  Only  the  daughters  of  the  poor 
worked.  The  girls  of  noble  families  were  destined  for 
marriage,  and  their  virginity  was  carefully  guarded. 
My  grandfather  never  allowed  his  pretty  daughters  to 
go  out  alone,  and  accompanied  them  himself  on  the 
rare  occasions  when  they  went  to  visit  their  country 
neighbours.  The  jealous  vigilance  of  their  father 
offended  the  delicacy  of  my  aunts.  Later  they  remem- 
bered with  horror  how  their  father  used  to  visit  their 
bedrooms  at  night  to  make  sure  that  they  had  not 
hidden  some  lover  under  the  bed.  My  aunts  at  this 
time  were  pure  and  innocent  children. 

My  grandfather's  avarice  increased  as  his  drinking 
habits  became  more  confirmed.  He  sent  so  little 
money  to  his  sons  that  they  were  in  want  of  everything. 
My  father  could  not  indulge  in  a  cup  of  tea  when  he 
came  in  from  drill,  which  was  often  carried  on  in  a  down- 
pour of  rain ;  he  had  no  change  of  boots,  and,  worst  of 
all,  no  money  to  give  to  the  orderlies  who  waited  on 
the  engineer  cadets.  Dostoyevsky  rebelled  against  the 
privations  and  humiliations  to  which  his  father's  mean- 
ness subjected  him;  a  meanness  for  which  there  was 
no  excuse,  for  my  grandfather  owned  land  and  had 
money  put  away  for  the  dowry  of  his  daughters.  My 
father  considered  that,  as  my  grandfather  had  chosen 


ADOLESCENCE  33 

a  brilliant  and  distinguished  school  for  him,  he  ought 
to  have  given  him  enough  money  to  live  in  the  same 
manner  as  his  comrades. 

This  state  of  friction  between  the  father  and  his  sons 
did  not  long  continue.  My  grandfather  had  always 
been  very  severe  to  his  serfs.  His  drunkenness  made 
him  so  savage,  that  they  finally  murdered  him.  One 
summer  day  he  left  his  estate  Darovoye  to  visit  his 
other  property,  Tchermashnia,  and  never  returned. 
He  was  found  later  half-way  between  the  two,  smothered 
under  the  cushions  of  his  carriage.  The  coachman  had 
disappeared  with  the  horses;  several  of  the  peasants 
of  the  village  disappeared  at  the  same  time.  When 
interrogated  by  the  Court,  other  serfs  of  my  grand- 
father's admitted  that  the  crime  was  one  of  vengeance. 

My  father  was  not  at  home  at  the  time  of  this  horrible 
death.  He  no  longer  went  to  Darovoye,  for  in  summer 
the  pupils  of  the  School  of  Engineers  had  to  carry  out 
manoeuvres  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Petersburg.  The 
crime  committed  by  the  peasants  of  Darovoye,  of  whom 
he  had  been  so  fond  as  a  child,  made  a  great  impression 
upon  his  adolescent  imagination.^     He  thought  of  it 

^  According  to  a  family  tradition,  it  was  when  he  heard  of  his 
father's  death  that  Dostoyevsky  had  his  first  epileptic  fit.  We 
can  only  conjecture  what  his  state  of  mind  must  have  been,  for 
all  the  correspondence  with  his  brother  Mihall  which  might 
have  thrown  some  light  on  this  period  of  his  life  has  been  destroyed. 
Later,  the  brothers  never  mentioned  their  father  in  their  letters ; 
the  subject  was  probably  too  painful  to  both  of  them.  From 
certain  sentences  in  the  last  letter  before  the  murder  of  his  father, 
we  may  infer  that  Dostoyevsky  knew  various  circumstances  of 
his  life  in  the  country.  "  Poor  father  I  "  he  wrote  to  his  brother 
Mihail,  "  what  an  extraordinary  character.  Ah !  what  mis- 
fortunes he  has  had  1  What  a  pity  it  is  that  I  cannot  console 
him  !  But  do  you  know,  our  father  has  no  idea  of  life.  He  has 
lived  for  fifty  years,  and  has  still  the  same  idea  of  men  as  when 
he  was  thirty."  As  always,  Dostoyevsky' s  prescience  made  him 
divine  the  principal  cause  of  his  father's  misfortunes.  My 
grandfather  indeed  lived  all  his  life  as  a  Lithuanian,  and  never 
troubled  to  study  the  Russian  character.  He  paid  dearly  for 
his  ignorance. 

D 


34  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

all  his  life,  and  pondered  the  causes  of  this  dreadful 
end  deeply.  It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  whole  of 
my  grandfather's  family  looked  upon  his  death  as  a 
disgrace,  never  mentioned  it,  and  prevented  Dos- 
toyevsky's  literary  friends,  who  knew  the  details  of  his 
life,  from  speaking  of  it  in  their  reminiscences  of  my 
father.  It  is  evident  that  my  uncles  and  aunts  had 
a  more  European  idea  of  slavery  than  the  Russians 
of  the  period.  Crimes  of  vengeance  committed  by 
peasants  were  very  frequent  at  the  time,  but  no  one 
blushed  for  them.  The  victims  were  pitied,  the  mur- 
derers denounced  with  horror.  The  Russians  had  a 
naive  belief  that  masters  might  treat  their  serfs  like 
dogs,  and  that  the  latter  had  no  right  to  revolt.  The 
Lithuanian  family  of  my  grandfather  looked  at  the 
matter  from  a  very  different  point  of  view. 

I  have  always  thought  that  Dostoyevsky  had  his 
father  in  mind  when  he  created  the  type  of  old  Kara- 
mazov.  It  is  not,  certainly,  an  exact  portrait.  Fyodor 
Karamazov  is  a  buffoon;  my  grandfather  was  always 
a  dignified  person.  Karamazov  was  a  profligate; 
Mihail  Dostoyevsky  loved  his  wife  and  was  faithful  to 
her.  Old  Karamazov  forsook  his  sons,  and  took  no 
interest  in  them;  my  grandfather  gave  his  children  a 
careful  education.  But  certain  traits  are  common  to 
both.  When  creating  the  type  of  Fyodor  Karamazov, 
Dostoyevsky  perhaps  remembered  his  father's  avarice, 
which  caused  his  young  sons  so  much  suffering  and 
indignation  at  school,  his  drunkenness,  and  the  physical 
disgust  it  provoked  in  his  children.  When  he  says  that 
Aliosha  Karamazov  did  not  share  this  disgust,  but 
pitied  his  unhappy  father,  Dostoyevsky  probably  recalls 
the  moments  of  pity  which  succeeded  to  those  of  disgust 
in  his  own  youthful  heart.  The  great  psychologist  in 
embryo  must  have  divined  at  times  that  his  father  was, 
after  all,  but  a  diseased  and  unhappy  being.     It  must 


ADOLESCENCE  35 

be  understood  that  this  Hkeness  between  my  grandfather 
and  the  old  Karamazov  is  merely  a  supposition  on  my 
part,  for  which  there  is  no  documentary  evidence.  Yet 
it  may  not  be  simply  a  coincidence  that  Dostoyevsky 
has  given  the  name  of  Tchermashnia  ^  to  the  village 
where  old  Karamazov  sent  his  son  Ivan  just  before 
his  death.  I  am  the  more  inclined  to  think  this, 
because  it  is  a  tradition  in  our  family  that  my  father 
portrayed  himself  in  the  person  of  Ivan  Karamazov. 
Thus  did  he  conceive  of  himself  at  the  age  of  twenty. 
It  is  curious  to  note  Ivan's  religious  beliefs,  his  poem, 
The  Grand  Inquisitor ^  and  his  immense  interest  in  the 
Catholic  Church.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  only 
some  three  or  four  generations  intervened  between 
Dostoyevsky  and  the  Catholicism  of  his  ancestors.  The 
Catholic  faith  must  have  been  still  alive  in  his  soul.  It 
is  still  more  curious  to  note  that  Dostoyevsky  gave  his 
own  name,  Fyodor,  to  old  Karamazov,  and  made 
Smerdiakov  say  to  Ivan  :  "  You  are  the  most  like 
your  father  of  all  his  sons."  It  is  probable  that  Dos- 
toyevsky was  haunted  all  his  life  by  the  bloody  spectre 
of  his  father,  and  that  he  analysed  his  own  actions 
minutely,  fearing  that  he  might  have  inherited  his 
father's  vices.  This  was  far  from  being  the  case; 
Dostoyevsky's  character  was  totally  different.  He  did 
not  like  wine,  and  it  disagreed  with  him,  as  with  all 
persons  of  nervous  temperament.  He  was  kind  and 
affectionate  to  every  one  around  him,  and  far  from 
being  suspicious,  was  rather  simple  and  confiding. 
Dostoyevsky  has  often  been  reproached  for  his  inability 
to  keep  money.  He  could  never  refuse  those  who  asked 
him  for  it,  and  gave  all  he  possessed  to  others.  He  was 
moved  to  do  so  by  charity,  but  also,  no  doubt,  by 
dread  of  developing  the  avarice  of  his  father.     He  feared 

1  As  we  have  seen  above,  it  was  on  his  way  to  his  property  of 
Tchermashnia  that  my  grandfather  was  murdered. 


36  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

this  the  more,  because  he  saw  this  vice  reproduced  in 
his  sister  Barbara,  and  gradually  taking  the  form  of  a 
veritable  mania.  Dostoyevsky,  no  doubt,  said  to  himself 
that  avarice,  that  moral  malady,  was  hereditary  in  his 
family,  and  that  each  of  them  might  be  attacked  by  it 
if  he  were  not  careful. 

The  alcoholism  of  my  grandfather  ravaged  the  lives 
of  nearly  all  his  children.  His  eldest  son  Mihail  and 
his  youngest  son  Nicolai  inherited  his  disease.  My 
uncle  Mihail,  though  he  drank,  was  at  least  able  to 
work ;  but  the  unhappy  Nicolai,  after  a  brilliant  course 
of  study,  was  never  able  to  do  anything,  and  remained 
a  burden  on  his  family  all  his  life.  My  father's  epilepsy, 
which  caused  him  so  much  suffering,  was  probably  due 
to  the  same  cause.  But  the  most  miserable  of  the 
family  was  certainly  my  aunt  Barbara.  She  married 
a  well-to-do  man,  who  left  her  considerable  house- 
property  in  Moscow.  The  houses  brought  in  a  good 
income;  my  aunt's  children  were  comfortably  settled 
in  life,  and  lacked  nothing.  She  had  therefore  all 
that  was  necessary  to  ensure  her  comfort  in  her  old 
age;  but  the  unhappy  woman  was  the  victim  of  a 
sordid  and  diseased  avarice.  She  opened  her  purse 
with  a  kind  of  despair;  the  smallest  expenditure  was 
torture  to  her.  She  finally  dismissed  her  servants,  to 
avoid  paying  their  wages.  She  had  no  fires  in  her 
apartments  and  spent  the  winter  wrapped  in  a  cloak. 
She  did  no  cooking;  twice  a  week  she  went  out  and 
bought  a  little  bread  and  milk.  There  was  a  great  deal 
of  gossip  in  the  district  where  she  lived  about  her 
inexplicable  avarice.  It  was  said  that  she  must  have  a 
great  deal  of  money,  and  that,  like  all  misers,  she  kept 
it  in  her  house.  This  gossip  worked  upon  the  mind  of 
a  young  peasant,  who  acted  as  porter  to  my  aunt's 
tenants.  He  came  to  an  understanding  with  a  vagabond 
who  was  prowling  about  in  the  neighbourhood;    one 


ADOLESCENCE  37 

night  they  got  into  the  poor  mad  woman's  dwelling  and 
murdered  her.  The  crime  was  committed  long  after 
my  father's  death. 

I  conclude  that  my  grandfather's  alcoholism  must 
have  been  hereditary,  for  his  personal  drunkenness 
could  not  have  caused  such  disaster  in  our  family.  The 
disease  persisted  in  my  uncle  MihaiTs  family;  the 
second  and  third  generation  were  victims  to  it.  My 
aunt  Barbara's  son  was  so  stupid  that  his  folly  verged 
on  idiocy.  My  uncle  Andrey's  son,  a  young  and 
brilliant  savant,  died  of  creeping  paralysis.  The  whole 
Dostoyevsky  family  suffered  from  neurasthenia. 


IV 

FIRST   STEPS 

When  he  had  comj^leted  his  studies  at  the  Castle  of 
the  Engineers,  Dostoyevsky  obtained  an  appointment 
in  the  Department  of  Military  Engineering.  He  did 
not  keep  it  long  and  hastened  to  resign.  His  father 
was  no  longer  there  to  force  him  to  serve  the  State; 
he  had  no  taste  for  military  service,  and  longed  more 
than  ever  to  be  a  novelist.  Young  Grigorovitch  fol- 
lowed his  example.  They  determined  to  live  together, 
set  up  in  bachelors'  quarters,  and  engaged  a  servant. 
Grigorovitch  received  money  from  his  mother,  who 
lived  in  the  provinces.  My  father  had  an  allowance 
from  his  guardian  at  Moscow,  who  sent  him  enough  to 
live  modestly.  Unfortunately,  my  father  always  had 
very  fantastic  ideas  concerning  economy.  All  his  life 
he  was  a  Lithuanian  Schliahtitch,  who  spent  the  money 
that  was  in  his  pocket  without  ever  asking  himself 
how  he  was  to  live  the  next  day.  Age  failed  to  correct 
this.  I  remember  a  journey  we  made  all  together 
towards  the  end  of  his  life,  going  to  the  Ukraine  to  spend 
the  summer  with  my  uncle  Jean.  We  had  to  stay  at 
Moscow  a  few  days  en  route,  and  here,  to  the  great 
indignation  of  my  mother,  Dostoyevsky  insisted  on  put- 
ting up  at  the  best  hotel  in  the  town,  and  took  a  suite  of 
rooms  on  the  first  floor,  whereas  at  Petersburg  we  had 
a  very  modest  domicile.  My  mother  protested  in  vain ; 
she  never  succeeded  in  curing  her  husband  of  his  prodi- 
gality. When  we  had  relations  coming  to  dinner  on 
some  family  festival,  my  father  always  offered  to  go 

38 


FIRST   STEPS  39 

and  buy  the  hors  d'oeuvre,  which  play  such  an  important 
part  in  a  Russian  dinner,  the  fruit,  and  the  dessert.  If 
my  mother  were  imprudent  enough  to  consent,  Dos- 
toyevsky  went  to  the  best  shops  in  the  town  and  bought 
of  all  the  good  things  he  found  there.  I  always  smile 
when  I  read  how  Dmitri  Karamazov  bought  provisions 
at  Plotnikov's,  before  starting  for  Mokro6.  I  seem 
to  see  myself  at  Staraya-Russa,  in  that  selfsame  shop, 
where  I  sometimes  went  with  my  father,  and  observed 
with  all  the  interest  of  a  greedy  child  his  original  manner 
of  providing  for  himself.  When  I  went  with  my 
mother,  she  would  come  out  carrying  a  modest  parcel 
in  her  hand.  When  I  accompanied  my  father,  we  left 
the  shop  empty-handed,  but  several  small  boys  preceded 
or  followed  us  to  our  house,  gaily  bearing  big  baskets 
and  reckoning  on  a  good  tip.  Like  a  true  Schliahtitch, 
my  father  never  asked  himself  whether  he  was  rich  or 
poor.  Formerly,  in  Poland  and  in  Lithuania,  the  native 
nobility  starved  at  home,  and  arrived  at  all  public 
gatherings  in  gilt  coaches  and  magnificent  velvet  coats. 
They  lived  crippled  by  debts,  paying  back  only  a  tithe 
of  what  they  had  borrowed,  never  thinking  of  their 
financial  position,  amusing  themselves,  laughing  and 
dancing.  These  racial  defects  take  centuries  to  eradicate ; 
many  a  descendant  of  Dostoyevsky's  will  yet  have  to 
suffer  for  the  mad  prodigality  of  their  ancestors.  There 
was,  however,  one  important  difference  between  my 
father  and  the  Lithuanian  Schliahtitchi.  They  thought 
only  of  living  merrily,  and  cared  little  for  others.  He 
gave  alms  to  all  the  poor  he  encountered,  and  was  never 
able  to  refuse  money  to  those  who  came  to  tell  him  of 
their  misfortunes  and  beg  him  to  help  them.  The 
tips  he  gave  to  servants  for  the  smallest  services  were 
fabulous  and  exasperated  my  poor  mother. 

It  is  obvious  that  living  in  this  manner  my  father 
spent  more  than   his   guardian  could  send   him  from 


40  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

Moscow.  He  got  into  debt,  and,  wishing  to  escape  from 
the  importunities  of  his  creditors,  he  proposed  to  his 
guardian  to  barter  his  birthright  for  a  comparatively- 
small  sum  of  ready  money.  Knowing  nothing  of  news- 
papers or  of  publishers,  Dostoyevsky  ingenuously  hoped 
to  make  a  living  by  his  pen.  His  guardian  agreed  to  the 
bargain,  which  he  ought  never  to  have  entertained. 
My  aunts  argued  that  their  brother  Fyodor  knew  nothing 
of  business,  and  that  he  could  be  made  to  accept  the 
most  disadvantageous  terms.  They  tried  to  repeat  the 
process  later  on,  when  the  Dostoyevsky  family  inherited 
some  further  property,  and  the  struggle  on  which  my 
father  was  forced  to  enter  with  his  sisters  darkened  the 
close  of  his  life.  I  shall  speak  of  this  business  more 
fully  in  the  final  chapters  of  my  book. 

Having  paid  his  debts,  Dostoyevsky  soon  spent  the 
little  money  he  had  left.  He  tried  to  make  translations, ^ 
but  of  course  this  brought  in  very  little.  At  this  junc- 
ture his  aunt  Kumanin  came  to  his  assistance  and 
made  him  an  allowance.  She  was  a  sister  of  his  mother's, 
who  had  made  a  rich  marriage,  and  lived  in  a  fine  house 
in  Moscow,  surrounded  by  a  horde  of  devoted  servants, 
and  waited  on  and  amused  by  a  number  of  lady  com- 
panions, poor  women  who  trembled  before  her,  and 
gave  way  to  all  the  caprices  of  their  wealthy  despot. 
She  patronised  her  nephews  and  nieces,  and  was  par- 
ticularly well  disposed  to  my  father,  who  was  always 
her  favourite.  She  alone  of  all  the  family  appreciated 
his  powers,  and  was  always  ready  to  come  to  his  aid. 
My  father  was  very  fond  of  his  old  aunt  Kumanin, 
though  he  made  fun  of  her  a  little,  like  all  her  young 
nephews.  He  painted  her  in  The  Gambler,  in  the  person 
of  the  old  Moscow  grandmother,  who  arrives  in  Germany, 
plays  roulette,  loses  half  her  fortune  and  goes  back  to 

1  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  made  an  excellent  translation  of 
Eugenie  Grandet. 


FIRST   STEPS  41 

Moscow  as  suddenly  as  she  came.  At  the  time  when 
roulette  was  flourishing  in  Germany,  my  great-aunt  was 
too  old  to  travel.  It  may  be,  however,  that  she  played 
cards  at  Moscow,  and  lost  large  sums  of  money.  When 
he  depicted  her  as  coming  to  Germany  and  playing 
roulette  at  his  side,  Dostoyevsky  perhaps  meant  to  show 
us  whence  came  his  passion  for  gaming. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  because  my 
father  spent  a  good  deal  of  money  he  was  leading  a 
profligate  life.  Dostoyevsky's  youth  was  studious  and 
industrious.  He  went  out  very  little,  and  would  sit  all 
day  at  his  writing-table,  talking  to  his  heroes,  laughing, 
crying,  and  suffering  with  them.  His  friend  Grigoro- 
vitch,  more  practical  than  he,  while  working  at  his 
writing,  tried  to  make  acquaintances  useful  to  his  future 
career,  got  himself  introduced  into  literary  society,  and 
then  introduced  his  friend  Dostoyevsky.  Grigorovitch 
was  handsome,  gay  and  elegant;  he  made  love  to  the 
ladies,  and  charmed  every  one.  My  father  was  awkward, 
shy,  taciturn,  rather  ugly;  he  spoke  little,  and  listened 
much.  In  the  drawing-rooms  they  frequented  the  two 
friends  met  the  young  Turgenev,  who  had  also  come 
to  embark  upon  the  career  of  a  novelist  at  Petersburg. 
My  father  admired  him  greatly.  "  I  am  in  love  with 
Turgenev,''  he  wrote  ingenuously  to  his  brother 
Mihail,  who,  having  completed  his  military  studies  was 
serving  at  Reval  as  an  officer.  "  He  is  so  handsome, 
so  graceful,  so  elegant  1  "  Turgenev  accepted  my 
father's  homage  with  an  air  of  condescension.  He 
considered  Dostoyevsky  a  nonentity. 

Grigorovitch  succeeded  in  making  the  acquaintance 
of  the  poet  Nekrassov,  who  proposed  to  start  a  literary 
review.  Grigorovitch  was  eager  to  be  connected  with 
this  review  in  one  way  or  another.  His  first  works  were 
not  quite  finished — he  was  rather  too  fond  of  society — 
but  he  knew  that  my  father  had  written  a  novel  and  was 


42  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

perpetually  correcting  it,  fearing  he  had  not  been  very 
successful.  Grigorovitch  persuaded  him  to  entrust  the 
manuscript  to  him  and  took  it  to  Nekrassov.  The  latter 
asked  Grigorovitch  if  he  were  familiar  with  the  work  of 
his  comrade,  and  hearing  that  he  had  not  yet  found  time 
to  read  it,  proposed  that  they  should  go  through  two  or 
three  chapters  together,  to  see  if  it  were  worth  anything. 
They  read  this  first  novel  of  my  father's  through  at  a 
sitting.^  Dawn  was  stealing  in  at  the  windows  when  they 
finished  it.  Nekrassov  was  astounded.  "Let  us  go 
and  see  Dostoyevsky,"  he  proposed;  "I  want  to  tell 
him  what  I  think  of  his  work."  "  But  he  is  asleep,  it  is 
not  yet  morning,"  objected  Grigorovitch.  "  What  does 
it  matter  ?  This  is  more  important  than  sleep  !  "  And 
the  enthusiast  set  off,  followed  by  Grigorovitch,  to  rouse 
my  father  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  inform 
him  that  he  had  an  extraordinary  talent. 

Later  on  the  manuscript  was  submitted  to  the  famous 
critic  Belinsky,  who,  after  reading  it,  desired  to  see 
the  young  author.  Dostoyevsky  entered  his  presence 
trembling  with  emotion.  Belinsky  received  him  with  a 
severe  expression.  "  Young  man,"  he  said,  "  do  you 
know  what  you  have  just  written?  No,  you  do  not. 
You  cannot  understand  it  yet." 

Nekrassov  published  Poor  Folks  in  his  Review,  and  it 
had  a  great  success.  My  father  found  himself  famous 
in  a  day.  Everybody  wished  to  know  him.  "  Who  is 
this  Dostoyevsky  ?  "  people  were  asking  on  every  side. 

^  It  was  called  Poor  Folks.  Before  writing  it  my  father  began 
a  tragedy,  Mary  Stuart,  which  he  laid  aside  in  order  to  write  a 
drama,  Boris  Godimov.  The  choice  of  these  subjects  is  very 
significant.  It  is  probable  that  in  Dostoyevsky's  early  youth, 
the  Norman  blood  of  his  paternal  ancestors  was  at  war  in  his 
heart  with  the  Mongolian  blood  of  his  Moscow  ancestors.  But 
the  Slav  strain  was  the  strongest  and  overcame  the  Norman  and 
Mongolian  atavisms.  Dostoyevsky  abandoned  Mary  Stuart  and 
Boris  Godunov,  and  gave  us  Poor  Folks,  which  is  full  of  the 
charming  Slav  sentiment  of  pity. 


FIRST   STEPS  43 

My  father  had  only  recently  began  to  frequent  literary 
society,  and  no  one  had  noticed  him  particularly.  The 
timid  Lithuanian  was  always  retiring  into  a  corner,  or 
the  embrasure  of  a  window,  or  lurking  behind  a  screen. 
But  he  was  no  longer  allowed  to  hide  himself.  He  was 
surrounded  and  complimented ;  he  was  induced  to  talk, 
and  people  found  him  charming.  In  addition  to  the 
literary  salons,  where  those  who  aspired  to  be  novelists, 
or  those  who  were  interested  in  literature  were  received, 
there  were  other  more  interesting  salons  in  Petersburg 
where  only  famous  writers,  painters  and  musicians  were 
admitted.  Such  were  the  salons  of  Prince  Odoevsky,  a 
distinguished  poet,  of  Count  Sollohub,  a  novelist  of 
much  taste,  who  has  left  us  very  penetrating  descriptions 
of  Russian  life  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  of  his  brother-in-law.  Count  Vieillegorsky,  a  russian- 
ised  Pole.  All  these  gentlemen  hastened  to  make 
Dostoyevsky's  acquaintance,  invited  him  to  their  houses 
and  received  him  cordially.  My  father  enjoyed  himself 
more  especially  with  the  Vieillegorsky,  where  there  was 
excellent  music.  Dostoyevsky  adored  music.  I  do 
not  think,  however,  that  he  had  a  musical  ear,  for  he 
distrusted  new  compositions,  and  preferred  to  hear  the 
pieces  he  knew  already.  The  more  he  heard  them,  the 
more  they  delighted  him. 

Count  Vieillegorsky  was  a  passionate  lover  of  music  ; 
he  patronised  musicians,  and  was  accustomed  to  hunt 
them  out  in  the  most  obscure  corners  of  the  capital. 
It  is  probable  that  some  strange  type,  some  poor, 
drunken,  ambitious,  jealous  violinist,  discovered  by 
Count  Vieillegorsky  in  a  garret,  and  induced  to  play  at 
his  receptions,  struck  my  father's  imagination,  for  Count 
Vieillegorsky's  house  is  the  scene  of  his  novel  Netotchka 
Nesvanova.  In  this  Dostoyevsky  achieved  a  true 
masterpiece  of  feminine  psychology,  though,  in  his 
youthful   inexperience,   he   may   not   have   sufficiently 


44  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

explained  it  to  his  public.  It  is  said  that  Countess 
Vieillegorsky  was  born  Princess  Biron.  Now  the  Princes 
Biron,  natives  of  Courland,  always  claimed  to  belong  to 
the  sovereigns,  rather  than  to  the  aristocracy  of  Europe. 
If  we  read  Netotchka  Nesvanova  attentively,  we  shall 
soon  see  that  Prince  S.,  who  had  offered  hospitality  to 
the  poor  orphan  girl,  is  merely  a  man  of  good  education 
and  good  society,  whereas  his  wife  is  very  haughty,  and 
gives  the  air  of  a  palace  to  her  home.  All  those  around 
her  speak  of  her  as  of  a  sovereign.  Her  daughter  Katia 
is  a  regular  little  "  Highness,"  spoilt  and  capricious,  now 
terrorising  her  subjects,  now  making  them  her  favourites. 
Her  affection  for  Netotchka  becomes  at  once  very 
passionate,  even  slightly  erotic.  The  Russian  critics 
rebuked  Dostoyevsky  very  severely  for  this  suggestion 
of  eroticism.  Now  my  father  was  perfectly  truthful, 
for  these  poor  German  princesses,  who  can  never  marry 
for  love,  and  are  always  sacrificed  to  interests  of  State, 
often  suffer  from  such  passionate  and  even  erotic  femi- 
nine friendships.  The  disease  is  hereditary  among 
them,  and  might  well  have  declared  itself  in  their 
descendant,  the  little  Katia,  a  precocious  child.  The 
Vieillegorsky  had  no  daughter;  the  type  of  Katia  was 
entirely  created  by  my  father,  who  depicted  it  after 
studying  the  princely  household.  In  the  portrait  of  this 
little  neurotic  Highness  Dostoyevsky  shows  a  knowledge 
of  feminine  psychology  very  remarkable  in  a  shy  young 
man,  who  scarcely  dared  to  approach  women.  His 
talent  was  already  very  great  at  this  period.  Unfortun- 
ately, he  lacked  models.  Nothing  could  have  been  paler 
or  less  distinctive  than  the  unhappy  natives  of  Peters- 
burg, born  and  bred  in  a  swamp.  They  are  mere  copies 
and  caricatures  of  Europe.  "These  folks  have  all  been 
dead  for  a  long  time,"  said  the  Russian  writer,  Mihail 
Saltikov.  "  They  only  continue  to  live  because  the 
police  have  forgotten  to  bury  the^ 


Y 


FIRST   STEPS  45 

Dostoyevsky's  friends,  the  young  novelists  who  were 
beginning  their  Hterary  careers,  had  not  the  strength  of 
mind  to  accept  his  unexpected  success.     They  became 
jealous,  and  were  irritated  by  the  idea  that  the  timid 
and  modest  young  man  was  received  in  the  salons  of 
celebrities,  to  which  aspirants  were  not  yet  admitted. 
They    would    not    appreciate    his    novel.     Poor   Folks 
seemed  to  them  wearisome  and  absurd.     They  parodied 
it  in  prose  and  verse,  and  ridiculed  the  young  author 
unmercifully.!      To  injure  him  in  public  opinion  they 
invented  grotesque  anecdotes  about  him.     They  asserted 
that  success  had  turned  his  head,  that  he  had  insisted 
that  each  page  of  his  second  novel,  which  was  about  to 
appear  in  Nekrassov's  Review,  should  be  enframed  in  a 
border  to  distinguish  it  from  the  other  works  in  the 
Review.     This    was,    of    course,    a    lie.     The    Double 
appeared    without    any    frame.     They    scoffed    at    his 
timidity  in  the  society  of  women,  and  described  how  he 
had  fainted  with  emotion  at  the  feet  of  a  young  beauty 
to  whom  he  had  been  presented  in  some  drawing-room. 
My  father  suffered  greatly  as  he  lost  his  illusions  con- 
cerning friendship.     He  had  had  a  very  different  idea 
of  it ;  he  imagined  artlessly  that  his  friends  would  rejoice 
at  his  success,  as  he  would  certainly  have  rejoiced  at 
theirs.     The    malice    of   Turgenev,    who,    exasperated 
at  the  success  of  Poor  Folks  did   his  utmost  to  injure 
Dostoyevsky,  was  particularly  wounding  to  my  father. 
He  was  so  much  attached  to  Turgenev,  and  admired 
him  so  sincerely.     This  was  the  beginning  of  the  long 
animosity  between  them,  which  lasted  all  their  lives, 
and  was  so  much  discussed  in  Russia. 

When  we  pass  in  review  all  the  friends  my  father  had 
during  his  life  we  shall  see  that  those  of  his  early  man- 
hood differ  very  markedly  from  those  of  his  maturity. 

1  Turgenev  wrote  a  burlesque  poem,  in  which  he  made  my 
father  cut  a  ridiculous  figure. 


46  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Until  the  age  of  forty  Dostoyevsky's  relations  were 
almost  exclusively  with  Ukrainians,  Lithuanians,  Poles 
and  natives  of  the  Baltic  Provinces.  Grigorovitch, 
half  Ukrainian,  half  French,  was  his  earliest  friend,  and 
found  a  publisher  for  his  first  novel.  Nekrassov,  whose 
mother  was  a  Pole,  gave  him  his  first  success ;  Belinsky, 
Polish  or  Lithuanian  by  origin,  revealed  his  genius  to  the 
Russian  public.  It  was  Count  Sollohub,  the  descendant 
of  a  great  Lithuanian  family,  and  Count  Vieillegorsky, 
a  Pole,  who  received  him  cordially  in  their  salons. 
Later,  in  Siberia,  we  shall  find  Dostoyevsky  protected  by 
a  Swede  and  natives  of  the  Baltic  Provinces.  It  seems 
that  all  these  people  recognised  in  him  a  European,  a 
man  of  Western  culture,  a  writer  who  shared  their 
Slavo-Norman  ideas.  At  the  same  time,  all  the  Russians 
were  hostile  to  him.  His  comrades  in  the  School  of 
Engineers  ridiculed  him  cruelly;  his  young  literary 
friends  hated  him,  despised  him,  tried  to  make  him  a 
laughing-stock.  It  was  as  if  they  recognised  in  him 
something  opposed  to  their  Russian  ideals. 

After  the  age  of  forty,  when  Dostoyevsky  had  defin- 
itively adopted  the  Russian  attitude,  the  nationality  of 
his  friends  changed.  The  Slavo-Normans  disappeared 
from  his  life.  The  Russians  sought  his  friendship  and 
formed  a  body-guard  around  him.  After  his  death  they 
continued  to  guard  him  as  jealously  as  in  the  past. 
Whenever  I  mention  the  Lithuanian  origin  of  our  family, 
my  compatriots  frown,  and  say :  "  Do  forget  that 
wretched  Lithuania !  Your  family  left  it  ages  ago. 
Your  father  was  Russian,  the  most  Russian  of  Russians. 
No  one  ever  understood  the  real  Russia  as  he  did." 

I  smile  when  I  note  this  jealousy,  which  is,  in  its 
essence,  love.  I  think  that  after  all  the  Russians  are 
right,  for  it  was  they  who  gave  Dostoyevsky  his  mag- 
nificent talent.  Lithuania  formed  his  character  and 
civilised  his  mind ;   Ukrainia  awoke  poetry  in  the  hearts 


FIRST   STEPS  47 

of  his  ancestors;  but  all  this  fuel,  gathered  together 
throughout  the  ages,  kindled  only  when  Holy  Russia 
fired  it  with  the  spark  of  her  great  genius. 

My  father's  first  novel  was  certainly  very  well  written, 
but  it  was  not  original.  It  was  an  imitation  of  a  novel 
of  Gogol's,  who  in  his  turn  had  imitated  the  French 
literature  of  his  day.  Les  Miserables,  with  its  marvellous 
Jean  Valjean,  is  at  the  bottom  of  this  new  literary 
movement.  It  is  true  that  Les  Misirables  was  written 
later ;  but  the  type  of  Valjean,  a  convict  of  great  nobility 
of  mind,  had  begun  to  appear  in  Europe.  The  demo- 
cratic ideas  awakened  by  the  French  Revolution,  led 
writers  to  raise  poor  folks,  peasants,  and  small  trades- 
people to  the  rank  occupied  by  the  nobles  and  the 
intellectuals  of  the  upper  middle  class.  This  new  trend 
in  literature  was  very  pleasing  to  the  Russians,  who, 
having  never  had  any  feudal  aristocracy,  were  always 
attracted  by  democratic  ideas.  Russian  writers,  who 
at  this  period  were  polished  and  highly  educated  persons, 
would  no  longer  describe  the  drawing-room ;  they  sought 
their  heroes  in  the  garret.  They  had  not  the  least  idea 
what  such  people  were  really  like,  and  instead  of  describ- 
ing them  as  they  were  in  reality,  illiterate  and  brutalised 
by  poverty,  they  endowed  their  new  heroes  with 
chivalrous  sentiments,  and  made  them  write  letters 
worthy  of  Madame  de  Sevign6.  It  was  false  and  absurd, 
nevertheless,  these  novels  were  the  origin  of  that  magnifi- 
cent nineteenth-century  literature  which  is  the  glory  of 
our  country.  Writers  gradually  perceived  that  before 
describing  a  new  world,  one  must  study  it.  They  set  to 
work  to  observe  the  peasants,  the  clergy,  the  merchants, 
the  townsfolk ;  they  gave  excellent  descriptions  of  Russian 
life,  which  was  very  little  known.  But  this  was  much 
later.  At  the  period  of  which  I  am  writing,  Russian 
novelists  drew  on  their  imagination,  and  have  left  us 
works  full  of  absurdities. 


48  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

My  father  no  doubt  realised  how  false  these  novels 
were,  for  he  tried  to  break  away  from  this  new  literary 
genre  in  his  second  work.  The  Double  is  a  book  of  far 
higher  quality  than  Poor  Folks.  It  is  original,  it  is 
already  "  Dostoyevsky."  Our  alienists  admire  this 
little  masterpiece  greatly,  and  are  surprised  that  a  young 
novelist  should  have  been  able  to  describe  the  last  days 
of  a  madman  so  graphically,  without  having  previously 
studied  medicine.^ 

Yet  this  second  novel  was  not  so  successful  as  the 
first.  It  was  too  new;  people  did  not  understand  that 
minute  analysis  of  the  human  heart,  which  was  so  much 
appreciated  later.  Madmen  were  not  fashionable;  this 
novel  without  hero  or  heroine  was  considered  uninterest- 
ing. The  critics  did  not  conceal  their  disappointment. 
"We  were  mistaken,"  they  wrote;  "  Dostoyevsky's 
talent  is  not  so  great  as  we  thought."  If  my  father 
had  been  older,  he  would  have  disregarded  the  critics, 
he  would  have  persisted  in  his  new  genre,  would  have 
imposed  it  on  the  public,  and  would  have  produced  very 
fine  psychological  studies  even  then.  But  he  was  too 
young;  criticism  distressed  him.  He  was  afraid  of 
losing  the  success  he  had  achieved  with  his  first  novel, 
and  he  went  back  to  the  false  Gogol  manner. 

But  this  time  he  was  not  content  to  draw  on  his 
imagination.  He  studied  the  new  heroes  of  Russian 
literature,  went  to  observe  the  inhabitants  of  garrets  in 
the  little  cafSs  and  drinking  shops  of  the  capital.  He 
entered  into  conversation  with  them,  watched  them,  and 
noted  their  manners  and  customs  carefully.  Feeling  shy 
and  uncertain  how  to  approach  them,  Dostoyevsky 
invited  them  to  play  billiards  with  him.     He  was  un- 

1  Dostoyevsky  thought  very  highly  of  The  Double.  In  a  letter 
to  his  brother  Mihail,  written  after  his  return  from  Siberia,  my 
father  said  :  "  It  was  a  magnificent  idea ;  a  type  of  great  social 
importance  which  I  was  the  first  to  create  and  present." 


FIRST   STEPS  49 

familiar  with  the  game,  and  not  at  all  interested  in  it, 
and  he  naturally  lost  a  good  deal  of  money.  He  did  not 
regret  this,  for  he  was  able  to  make  curious  observations 
as  he  played,  and  to  note  many  original  expressions.^ 

After  studying  this  curious  society,  of  which  he  had 
known  nothing,  for  some  months,  Dostoyevsky  began  to 
describe  the  lower  orders  as  they  really  were,  thinking 
this  would  interest  the  public.  Alas  !  he  was  even  less 
successful  than  before.  The  Russian  public  was  ready 
to  take  an  interest  in  the  wretched,  if  they  were  served 
up  d,  la  Jean  Valjean.  Their  real  life,  in  all  its  sordid 
meanness,  interested  no  one. 

Dostoyevsky  began  to  lose  confidence  in  his  powers. 
His  health  gave  way,  he  became  nervous  and  hysterical. 
Epilepsy  was  latent  in  him,  and  before  declaring  itself 
in  epileptic  seizures,  it  oppressed  him  terribly.  ^  He 
now  avoided  society,  would  spend  long  hours  shut  up 
in  his  own  room,  or  wandering  about  in  the  darkest  and 
most  deserted  streets  of  Petersburg.  He  talked  to 
himself  as  he  walked,  gesticulating,  and  causing  passers- 
by  to  turn  and  look  at  him.  Friends  who  met  him 
thought  he  had  gone  mad.  The  colourless,  stupid  city 
quenched    his   talent.     The   upper   classes   were   mere 

^  My  father's  friends  relate  in  their  reminiscences  that  he  often 
invited  strangers  to  visit  him  among  tliose  he  met  in  the  cajds, 
and  that  lie  would  spend  whole  days  listening  to  their  conversation 
and  stories.  My  father's  friends  could  not  understand  what 
pleasure  he  could  take  in  talking  to  such  uneducated  people; 
later,  when  they  read  his  novels,  they  recognised  the  types  they 
had  encountered.  It  is  evident  that,  like  all  young  men  of  talent, 
he  could  only  paint  from  nature  at  this  period.  Later  he  did 
not  need  models,  and  created  his  types  himself. 

2  Dr.  Janovsky,  whom  my  father  liked  very  much,  and  con- 
sulted about  his  health,  says  that  long  before  his  convict-life 
Dostoyevsky  already  suffered  from  a  nervous  complaint,  which  was 
very  like  epilepsy.  As  I  have  mentioned  above,  my  father's 
family  declared  that  he  had  had  his  first  attack  when  he  heard 
of  the  tragic  death  of  my  grandfather.  It  is  evident  that  he  was 
already  suffering  from  epilepsy  at  the  age  of  eighteen,  although 
it  did  not  assume  its  more  violent  form  until  after  his  imprisonment. 
E 


50  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

caricatures  of  Europeans ;  the  populace  belonged  to  the 
Finno-Turkisk  tribe,  an  inferior  race,  who  could  not  give 
Dostoyevsky  any  idea  of  the  great  Russian  people.  He 
had  not  enough  money  to  go  to  Europe,  the  Caucasus 
or  the  Crimea ;  travelling  was  very  costly  at  this  period. 
My  father  languished  in  Petersburg  and  was  only  happy 
with  his  brother  Mihail,  who  had  resigned  his  com- 
mission and  settled  in  the  capital,  meaning  to  devote 
himself  to  literature.  He  had  married  a  German  of 
Reval,  Emilie  Dibmar,  and  had  several  children.  My 
father  was  fond  of  his  nephews ;  their  childish  laughter 
banished  his  melancholy. 

It  is  astonishing  to  find  no  woman  in  the  life  of 
Dostoyevsky  at  this  period  of  early  youth,  which  is  the 
age  of  love  for  most  men.  No  betrothed,  no  mistress, 
not  even  a  flirtation  I  This  extraordinary  virtue  can 
only  be  explained  by  the  tardy  development  of  his 
organism,  which  is  not  rare  in  Northern  Russia.  Russian 
law  allows  women  to  marry  at  the  age  of  sixteen ;  but 
quite  recently,  a  few  years  before  the  war,  Russian 
savants  had  begun  to  protest  against  this  barbarous 
custom.  According  to  their  observations  the  Northern 
Russian  woman  is  not  completely  developed  until  the 
age  of  twenty-three.  If  she  marries  before  this,  child- 
bearing  may  do  her  great  harm  and  ruin  her  health 
permanently.  It  is  to  this  evil  custom  that  our  doctors 
attribute  the  hysteria  and  nervous  complaints  that 
ravage  so  many  Russian  homes.  If  the  savants  are 
right,  we  must  place  the  complete  development  of  the 
Northern  Russian  male  organism  in  the  twenty-fifth 
year,  as  men  always  come  to  maturity  later  than  women. 
A^  to  abnormal  organisms,  those  of  epileptics,  for  in- 
stance, they  must  mature  even  more  slowly.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  at  this  age,  Dostoyevsky's  senses  were  not 
yet  awakened.  He  was  like  a  schoolboy  who  admires 
women  from   afar,  is  very  much  afraid  of  them,  and 


FIRST  STEPS  51 

does  not  yet  need  them.  My  father's  friends,  as  we 
have  seen,  ridiculed  his  timidity  in  the  society  of 
women. ^  His  romantic  period  began  after  his  imprison- 
ment, and  he  showed  no  timidity  then. 

The  heroines  of  Dostoyevsky's  first  novels  are  pale, 
nebulous,  and  lacking  in  vitality.  He  painted  only 
two  good  feminine  portraits  at  this  period — those  of 
Netotchka  Nesvanova  and  the  little  Katia,  children 
of  from  ten  to  twelve  years  old.  This  novel  is,  if  we 
except  The  Double,  his  best  work  of  this  period.  It  has 
but  one  fault,  which  is  common  to  all  the  novels  written 
by  Dostoyevsky  before  his  imprisonment  :  the  heroes 
are  too  international.  They  can  live  under  any  skies, 
speak  all  tongues,  bear  all  climates.  They  have  no 
fatherland,  and,  like  all  cosmopolitans,  are  pale,  vague 
and  ill-defined.  To  make  them  live,  it  was  necessary  to 
create  a  nationality  for  them.  This  Dostoyevsky  was 
about  to  do  in  Siberia. 

^  Dr.  Riesenkampf,  who  knew  my  father  well  at  this  period  of 
his  life,  wrote  in  his  reminiscences  :  "  At  the  age  of  twenty  young 
men  generally  seek  a  feminine  ideal,  and  run  after  all  young 
beauties.  I  never  noticed  anything  of  the  sort  with  Dostoyevsky. 
He  was  indifferent  to  women,  had  even  an  antipathy  to  them." 
Riesenkampf  adds,  however,  that  Dostoyevsky  was  much  inter- 
ested in  the  love-affairs  of  his  comrades,  and  was  fond  of  singing 
sentimental  songs.  This  habit  of  singing  songs  that  pleased  him 
he  retained  to  the  end  of  his  life.  He  generally  sang  in  a  low 
voice  when  he  was  alone  in  his  room. 


THE    PETRACIIEVSKY    CONSPIRACY 

It  was  at  his  unhappy  period  of  his  hfe  that  my 
father  was  involved  in  the  Petrachevsky  conspiracy. 
Those  who  were  famihar  with  Dostoyevsky's  monarchic 
principles  in  later  life  could  never  understand  how  he 
came  to  associate  himself  with  revolutionaries.  It  is, 
indeed,  inexplicable  if  my  father's  Lithuanian  origin 
be  ignored.  He  plotted  against  the  Tsar,  because  he 
did  not  yet  understand  the  real  meaning  of  the  Russian 
monarchy.  At  this  period  of  his  life  Dostoyevsky  knew 
little  of  Russia.  He  had  spent  his  childhood  in  a  kind 
of  artificial  Lithuania  created  by  his  father  in  the  heart 
of  Moscow.  In  his  adolescence  at  the  Castle  of  the 
Engineers  he  held  aloof  as  far  as  possible  from  his 
Russian  comrades.  When  he  became  a  novelist  he 
frequented  the  literary  society  of  Petersburg,  the  least 
stable  in  the  whole  country.  At  that  time  Russia  was 
practically  unknown;  our  geographers  and  historians 
hardly  existed  as  yet.  Travelling  was  difficult  and 
expensive.  There  were  neither  railways  nor  steamers 
in  the  country.  The  peasant-serfs  worked  their  land 
and  kept  silence;  the  moujik  was  called  "a  sphynx." 
The  Russian  writers  lived  only  by  the  mind  of  Europe, 
read  only  French,  English  and  German  books,  and 
shared  all  the  ideas  of  Europeans  concerning  liberty. 
Instead  of  informing  Europe  as  to  Russian  ideas,  our 
writers  ingenuously  asked  Europe  to  explain  to  them 
what  Russia  was.  Now  if  my  compatriots  knew  little 
of    Russia,    Europe    knew    nothing    of    it.     European 

52 


THE   PETRACHEVSKY   CONSPIRACY     53 

writers,  scientists,  statesmen  and  diplomatists  did  not 
learn  the  Russian  language,  did  not  travel  in  Russia, 
did  not  take  the  trouble  to  go  and  study  the  moujik 
in  his  home.  They  were  content  to  get  their  information 
from  the  political  refugees  who  inhabited  their  towns. 
All  these  Jews,  Poles,  Lithuanians,  Armenians,  Finns 
and  Letts  could  not  even  speak  Russian,  and  talked  the 
most  terrible  jargon.  This  did  not  prevent  them  from 
addressing  Europe  in  the  name  of  the  Russian  people. 
They  assured  Europeans  that  the  moujiks  were  groaning 
under  the  yoke  of  the  Tsars,  and  were  waiting  impatiently 
for  the  nations  of  Europe  to  come  and  deliver  them,  in 
order  to  give  them  that  European  republic  of  which 
(according  to  the  refugees)  the  moujik  was  dreaming 
day  and  night.  Europe  took  their  word  for  it.  It  has 
only  been  in  our  own  days,  when  Europeans  have  seen 
"  Tsarism "  replaced  by  Bolshevism  and  defaitisme, 
that  they  have  begun  to  understand  how  they  have  been 
deceived.  It  will  be  a  long  time  yet  before  they 
understand  the  true  Russia.  Meanwhile  the  Russian 
Colossus  has  many  rude  awakenings  and  unpleasant 
surprises  in  store  for  them. 

At  the  time  of  the  Petrachevsky  conspiracy  my  father 
was  more  Lithuanian  than  Russian,  and  Europe  was 
dearer  to  him  than  his  fatherland.  The  novels  he  wrote 
before  his  imprisonment  were  all  imitations  of  European 
works  :  Schiller,  Balzac,  Dickens,  Georges  Sand  and 
Walter  Scott  were  his  masters.  He  believed  in  the 
European  newspapers  as  one  believes  in  the  Gospels. 
He  dreamed  of  going  to  live  in  Europe,  and  declared 
that  he  could  only  learn  to  write  well  there.  He  talked 
of  this  project  in  his  letters  to  his  friends,  and  lamented 
that  lack  of  means  prevented  him  from  carrying  it  out. 
The  thought  that  it  might  be  well  to  go  east  instead  of 
west,  in  order  to  become  a  great  Russian  writer,  never 
entered  his  head.     Dostoyevsky  hated  the  Mongolian 


54  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

strain  in  the  Russians ;  he  was  a  true  Ivan  Karamazov 
at  this  time  of  his  hfe. 

The  emancipation  of  the  serfs  was  then  imminent. 
Every  one  was  talking  of  it,  and  every  one  reahsed  the 
necessity  for  it.  Our  government,  true  to  its  tradition, 
hesitated  to  make  the  reform.  The  Russians,  who 
understood  their  own  slow  and  indolent  national 
character  knew  that  they  had  only  to  wait  patiently 
for  a  year  or  two  and  they  would  obtain  it.  The  Poles, 
the  Lithuanians  and  the  natives  of  the  Baltic  Provinces 
did  not  understand  this  delay,  and  believed  that  the 
Tsar  would  never  give  liberty  to  his  people.  They 
proposed  to  overthrow  him  in  order  to  secure  it  them- 
selves for  the  peasants.  Dostoyevsky  shared  their 
misgivings.  He  knew  nothing  of  Oriental  indolence; 
all  his  life  he  was  active  and  energetic.  When  an  idea 
seemed  right  to  him  he  at  once  put  it  into  practice ;  he 
could  not  understand  the  dilatoriness  of  the  Russian 
bureaucracy.  He  could  not  forget  his  father's  tragic 
death,  and  he  ardently  desired  the  abolition  of  a  system 
which  made  the  masters  cruel  and  incited  the  slaves  to 
crime.  In  his  then  state  of  mind,  the  meeting  with 
Petrachevsky  was  bound  to  have  fatal  results. 
Petrachevsky,  as  his  name  indicates,  was  of  Polish 
or  Lithuanian  origin,  and  this  was  a  bond  of  union 
between  him  and  Dostoyevsky  stronger  than  all  the  rest. 
Petrachevsky  was  eloquent  and  adroit ;  he  drew  all  the 
young  dreamers  in  Petersburg  around  him  and  inflamed 
them.  The  idea  of  sacrificing  oneself  to  the  happiness 
of  others  is  very  attractive  to  young  and  generous 
hearts,  especially  when  their  own  lives  are  as  sad  as  was 
my  father's  at  that  time.  During  his  lonely  wanderings 
in  the  dark  streets  of  Petersburg,  he  must  often  have 
said  to  himself  that  it  would  be  better  to  die  in  a  noble 
cause  than  to  drag  out  a  useless  existence. 

The  Petrachevsky  trial  is  one  of  the  most  obscure  of 


THE  PETRACHEVSKY  CONSPIRACY     55 

all  Russian  political  trials.  The  secret  documents  which 
have  been  published  give  but  a  very  commonplace 
picture  of  a  political  gathering,  where  young  people  met 
to  repeat  truisms  about  the  new  ideas  which  were  arriving 
from  Europe,  to  lend  each  other  books  forbidden  by  the 
Censor,  and  to  declaim  incendiary  fragments  from 
revolutionary  pamphlets.  Nevertheless,  my  father 
ahvays  maintained  that  it  was  a  political  plot,  the  object 
of  which  was  to  overthrow  the  Tsar,  and  set  up  a  republic 
of  intellectuals  in  Russia.  It  is  probable  that  Petrachev- 
sky,  while  preparing  an  army  of  volunteers,  confided 
the  secret  aims  of  the  enterprise  only  to  a  chosen  few. 
Appreciating  Dostoyevsky's  mind,  courage  and  moral 
force,  Petrachevsky  probably  intended  him  to  play  a 
leading  part  in  the  future  republic. ^  My  uncle  Mihail, 
was  also  interested  in  the  society,  but  as  he  was  married, 
and  the  father  of  a  family,  he  thought  it  wise  not  to 
frequent  the  Petrachevsky  gatherings  too  assiduously. 
He  took  advantage,  however,  of  the  library  of  forbidden 
books.  My  uncle  was  at  this  time  a  great  admirer  of 
Fourier,  and  a  fervid  student  of  his  romantic  theories. 
My  uncle  Andrey  also  attended  the  meetings.  At  this 
period  he  was  a  very  young  man,  and  had  only  just 
begun  his  higher  courses  of  study.  He  was  many  years 
younger  than  his  two  elder  brothers,  and  looked  upon 
them  rather  as  parents  than  as  equals.  The  older  men 
in  their  turn,  treated  him  as  a  little  boy.  Such  relations 
do  not  exist  among  Russians,  but  they  are  often  found 

1  One  of  the  members  of  the  Petrachevsky  association  gave  it 
as  his  opinion  that  Dostoyevsky  was  the  only  one  of  the  band  who 
was  a  typical  conspirator.  He  was  silent  and  reserved,  not  given 
to  opening  his  heart  to  every  one  after  the  Russian  fashion. 
This  reticence  persisted  all  his  life.  He  maintained  it  even 
towards  my  mother,  and  in  the  early  days  of  their  marriage  she 
fomid  it  very  difficult  to  make  him  speak  of  his  past  life.  Later, 
however,  when  Dostoyevsky  realised  how  devoted  his  second  wife 
was  to  him,  he  opened  his  heart  to  her,  and  had  no  more  secrets 
from  her. 


56  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

in  Polish  and  Lithuanian  families.  My  father  never 
discussed  politics  with  his  younger  brother,  and  my 
uncle  Audrey  was  unaware  of  the  part  he  was  playing 
in  Petrachevsky's  society.  Audrey  Dostoyevsky  had 
none  of  the  literary  talent  of  his  brothers;  but  the 
family  readings  which  my  grandfather  Mihail  continued 
for  the  benefit  of  his  younger  sons  gave  him  a  great 
interest  in  literature.  Later,  when  serving  the  State  in 
various  provincial  towns,  he  always  managed  to  draw 
all  the  intellectuals  of  the  place  round  him.  Having 
heard  of  the  interesting  gatherings  that  took  place  at 
Petrachevsky's  house,  he  begged  one  of  his  comrades 
to  introduce  him.  He  attended  several  meetings  without 
encountering  my  father.  One  evening,  when  my  uncle 
Audrey  was  passing  from  group  to  group,  listening  with 
great  interest  to  the  political  discussions  of  the  young 
men,  he  suddenly  found  himself  confronted  by  his  brother 
Fyodor,  whose  face  was  white  and  drawn  with  anger. 

"  What  are  you  doing  here?  "  he  asked  in  a  terrible 
voice.  "  Go  away,  go  away  at  once,  and  let  me  never 
see  you  in  this  house  again." 

My  uncle  was  so  alarmed  by  his  elder  brother's  anger 
that  he  left  Petrachevsky's  reception  immediately,  and 
never  returned.  When  the  police  discovered  the  plot 
later  on,  all  three  Dostoyevsky  brothers  were  arrested. 
My  uncle  Audrey's  ingenuous  replies  made  it  evident  to 
the  judges  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  conspiracy,  and 
he  was  soon  released.  The  anger  of  his  brother  had 
saved  him.  My  uncle  Mihail  was  kept  in  prison  for 
some  weeks.  Dostoyevsky  said  later  in  the  Journal  of 
the  Writer i  that  Mihail  knew  a  great  deal.  It  is  probable 
that  my  father  had  no  secrets  from  him.  My  uncle  also 
knew  how  to  hold  his  tongue,  and  he  confessed  nothing. 
He  was  able  to  prove  easily  that  he  rarely  visited 
Petrachevsky  and  only  went  to  his  house  to  borrow 
books.     He  was  eventually  released,  and  Prince  Gagarin, 


THE   PETRACHEVSKY   CONSPIRACY     57 

who  was  looking  into  his  case,  knowing  the  affection  that 
existed  between  the  two  brothers,  hastened  to  let  my 
father  know  that  his  brother  had  been  liberated,  and  that 
he  need  have  no  further  fears  on  his  account.  My  father 
never  forgot  this  generous  action  on  the  part  of  Prince 
Gagarin,  and  he  spoke  of  it  later  in  the  Journal  of  the 
Writer. 

Dostoyevsky  was  treated  more  harshly  than  his 
brothers.  He  had  been  sent  to  the  Peter-Paul  fortress, 
the  terrible  prison  of  political  conspirators.  Here  he 
spent  the  most  miserable  months  of  his  life.  He  did 
not  like  to  speak  of  them ;  he  tried  to  forget.  Strange 
to  say,  The  Little  Hero,  the  novel  he  wrote  in  prison, 
is  the  most  poetic,  the  most  graceful,  the  j^^oungest  and 
freshest  of  all  his  works.  As  we  read  it  we  might  suppose 
that  Dostoyevsky  was  trying  to  evoke  in  his  dark  prison 
the  scent  of  flowers,  the  poetic  shade  of  the  great  parks 
with  their  centenarian  trees,  the  joyous  laughter  of 
children,  the  beauty  and  grace  of  young  women.  Summer 
was  reigning  in  Petersburg,  but  the  sun  barely  glanced 
on  the  damp  walls  of  the  old  fortress. 

The  Petrachevsky  trial  dragged  on  as  was  usual  in 
Russia.  Autumn  had  already  come  when  the  Governor 
at  last  made  up  his  mind  to  deal  seriously  with  the 
conspirators.  Our  political  cases  were  nearly  always 
tried  by  the  military  courts;  the  chief  among  the 
generals  who  had  to  enquire  into  the  Petrachevsky  affair 
was  General  Rostovzov.  Later,  he  was  appointed 
President  of  the  Commission  for  the  emancipation  of 
the  serfs,  and  conducted  a  vigorous  struggle  with  the 
great  landowners  who  wished  to  emancipate  the  serfs, 
but  to  keep  all  the  land  for  themselves.  Rostovzov, 
supported  by  Alexander  II,  who  had  a  great  regard 
for  him,  gained  the  victory,  and  the  peasants  received 
their  portions  of  land.  General  Rostovzov  was  an 
ardent  patriot,  and  looked  upon  all  pohtical  conspiracies 


-/ 


58  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

as  crimes.  He  carefully  studied  all  the  documents 
the  police  had  seized  in  the  dwellings  of  Petrachevsky 
and  of  the  young  men  who  belonged  to  his  party,  and 
was  probably  surprised  at  the  weakness  of  the  evidence 
against  them.  Knowing  something  of  Dostoyevsky's 
intellect  and  talent,  he  suspected  him  of  being  one  of  the 
leaders  of  the  movement,  and  resolved  to  make  him 
speak.  On  the  day  of  the  trial  he  was  amiable  and 
charming  to  my  father.  He  talked  to  Dostoyevsky 
as  to  a  young  author  of  great  gifts,  a  man  of  lofty 
European  culture,  who  had  unfortunately  been  drawn 
into  a  political  plot  without  very  well  knowing  the 
gravity  of  what  he  was  doing.  The  General  was 
obviously  indicating  to  Dostoyevsky  the  part  he  ought 
to  play  to  avoid  severe  punishment.  My  father  was 
always  very  ingenuous  and  very  confiding.  He  did 
not  understand  all  this,  was  much  attracted  by  the 
General,  who  treated  him  not  as  a  criminal,  but  as  a 
man  of  the  world,  and  answered  all  his  questions  readily. 
Rostovzov  must  have  let  slip  some  unguarded  word, 
for  my  father  suddenly  realised  that  he  was  being  invited 
to  buy  his  own  liberty  by  selling  his  comrades.  He  was 
deeply  indignant  that  such  a  proposal  should  have  been 
made  to  him.  His  sympathy  for  Rostovzov  changed 
to  hatred.  He  became  stubborn  and  cautious,  fencing 
with  each  question  put  to  him.  The  young  man, 
though  nervous  and  hysterical,  and  exhausted  by  long 
months  of  imprisonment,  was  stronger  than  the  General. 
Seeing  that  his  stratagem  was  detected,  Rostovzov  lost 
his  temper;  he  quitted  the  court,  leaving  the  inter- 
rogatory to  the  other  members  of  the  tribunal.  Occasion- 
ally he  opened  the  door  of  an  adjoining  room  where  he 
had  taken  refuge  and  asked  :  "  Have  they  finished 
examining  Dostoyevsky  ?  I  won't  come  back  into  the 
court  until  that  hardened  sinnef  has  left  it." 

My  father  could  never   forgive  Rostovzov's  hostile 


THE   PETRACHEVSKY   CONSPIRACY     59 

attitude.  He  called  him  a  mountebank,  and  spoke  of 
him  with  contempt  all  his  life.  He  despised  him  the 
more,  because  at  the  time  of  the  trial,  Dostoyevsky 
believed  himself  to  be  in  the  right,  and  considered  himself 
as  a  hero  eager  to  save  his  country.  The  anguish  my 
father  endured  during  his  examination  made  a  deep 
impression  on  his  mind.  Later  it  found  expression  in 
Raskolnikov's  duel  with  Porfiry,  and  Dmitri  Kara- 
mazov's  duel  with  the  magistrates  who  came  to  interrogate 
him  at  Mokro6. 

The  Generals,  headed  by  Rostovzov,  presented  the 
death-sentence  to  Nicholas  I.  He  refused  to  sign  it. 
The  Emperor  was  not  cruel,  but  he  was  narrow-minded, 
and  had  no  idea  of  psychology.  This  science  was, 
indeed,  very  little  known  in  Russia  at  this  period.  The 
Emperor  did  not  desire  the  death  of  the  conspirators, 
but  he  wished  "  to  give  the  young  men  a  good  lesson." 
His  advisers  proposed  a  lugubrious  comedy.  The 
prisoners  were  told  to  prepare  for  death.  They  were 
taken  to  a  public  place,  where  the  scaffold  had  been 
erected.  They  were  made  to  mount  it.  One  of  the 
conspirators  was  bound  to  a  post  with  his  eyes  bandaged. 
The  soldiers  made  as  if  they  were  about  to  shoot  the 
unhappy  prisoners.  ...  At  this  moment  a  messenger 
arrived  and  announced  that  the  Emperor  had  changed 
the  death-sentence  into  that  of  hard  labour.  Memoirs 
of  the  time  state  that  for  fear  of  accidents  the  soldiers 
rifles  were  not  even  loaded,  and  that  the  messenger  who 
was  supposed  to  have  come  from  the  Palace  was  actually 
on  the  spot  before  the  arrival  of  the  conspirators.  All 
this  was,  no  doubt,  true ;  but  the  unfortunate  young  men 
knew  nothing  of  it,  and  were  making  ready  to  die.  If 
Nicholas  I  had  been  more  subtly  constituted,  he  would 
have  realised  that  it  would  have  been  more  generous  to 
shoot  the  conspirators  than  to  make  them  undergo  such 
anguish.     However,  the  Emperor  acted  in  accordance 


60  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

with  the  manners  of  his  time;  our  grandfathers  had  a 
great  hking  for  scenes  of  false  sentiment.  Nicholas 
no  doubt  thought  he  would  confer  a  great  joy  on  the 
young  men  by  giving  them  back  their  lives  on  the 
scaffold  itself.  Few  among  them  were  able  to  bear  this 
joy;  some  lost  their  reason,  others  died  young.  It  is 
possible  that  my  father's  epilepsy  would  never  have 
taken  such  a  terrible  form  but  for  this  grim  jest. 

Ill  and  enfeebled  as  he  was,  Dostoyevsky  had  mounted 
the  scaffold  boldly  and  had  looked  death  bravely  in  the 
face.  He  has  told  us  that  all  he  felt  at  this  moment  was 
a  mystic  fear  at  the  thought  of  presenting  himself 
immediately  before  God,  in  his  unprepared  state.  His 
friends  who  were  gathered  round  the  scaffold  say  he  was 
calm  and  dignified.  My  father  has  described  his  emo- 
tions at  this  moment  in  The  Idiot.  Though  he  paints 
the  anguish  of  one  condemned  to  death,  he  tells  us 
nothing  of  the  joy  he  felt  on  learning  his  reprieve.  It 
is  probable  that  when  the  first  rush  of  animal  joy  was 
over  he  felt  a  great  bitterness,  a  deep  indignation  at 
the  thought  that  he  had  been  played  with  and  tortured 
so  cruelly.  His  pure  soul,  which  was  already  aspiring 
heavenwards,  perhaps  regretted  that  it  had  to  sink  to 
earth  again,  and  plunge  once  more  into  the  mud  in 
which  we  are  all  struggling. 

My  father  returned  to  the  fortress.  A  few  days  later 
he  left  for  Siberia  in  company  of  a  police  officer.  He 
quitted  Petersburg  on  Christmas  Eve.  As  he  passed  in 
a  sleigh  through  the  streets  of  the  capital,  he  looked  at 
the  lighted  windows  of  the  houses  and  said  to  himself : 
"  At  this  moment  they  are  lighting  up  the  Christmas 
tree  in  my  brother  Mihail's  house.  My  nephews  are 
admiring  it,  laughing  and  dancing  round  it,  and  I  am 
not  with  them.  God  knows  if  I  shall  ever  see  them 
again  !  "  Dostoyevsky  regretted  only  his  little  nephews 
as  he  turned  his  back  on  that  cold-hearted  city. 


THE  PETRACHEVSKY   CONSPIRACY     61 

On  arriving  in  Siberia  my  father  had  a  visit  at  one 
of  the  first  halts  from  two  ladies.  They  were  the  wives 
of  "  Dekabrists,"  ^  whose  self-appointed  mission  it  was 
to  meet  newly  arrived  political  prisoners,  in  order  to 
say  a  few  words  of  comfort  to  them,  and  give  them  some 
advice  about  the  life  that  awaited  them  as  convicts. 
They  handed  my  father  a  Bible,  the  only  book  allowed 
in  prison.  Taking  advantage  of  a  moment  when  the 
police  officer's  back  was  turned,  one  of  the  ladies  told 
my  father  in  French  to  examine  the  book  carefully 
when  he  was  alone.  He  found  a  note  for  25  roubles 
stuck  between  two  leaves  of  the  Bible.  With  this 
money  he  was  able  to  buy  a  little  linen,  soap  and  tobacco, 
to  improve  his  coarse  fare,  and  get  white  bread.  He  had 
no  other  money  all  the  time  he  was  in  exile.  His 
brothers,  his  sisters,  his  aunt  and  his  friends  had  all 
basely  deserted  him,  terrified  by  his  crime  and  its 
punishment. 

1  Persons  implicated  in  a  political  plot  against  Nicholas  I  at  the 
beginning  of  his  reign.  They  made  their  attempt  to  overthrow 
autocratic  rule  in  the  month  of  December,  whence  their  name  of 
"  Dekabrists."  They  were  sent  to  a  convict  station ;  their 
wives  followed  them.  They  enjoyed  more  liberty  than  their 
husbands,  who  at  the  time  of  the  Petrachevsky  conspiracy,  had 
already  served  their  sentence,  but  had  still  to  remain  in  Siberia 
under  police  surveillance.  The  "  Dekabrists  "  had  wished  to 
introduce  an  aristocratic  republic  in  Russia,  and  apportion  power 
among  those  who  belonged  to  the  union  of  hereditary  nobles. 
The  nobles  always  had  a  great  respect  for  the  "  Dekabrists  "  and 
considered  them  martyrs. 


VI 

PRISON    LIFE 

When  a  man  is  suddenly  uprooted  and  finds  himself 
obliged  to  spend  years  in  a  strange  world,  with  people 
whose  coarseness  and  lack  of  education  are  bound  to 
distress  him,  he  thinks  out  a  plan  by  means  of  which 
he  may  avoid  the  worst  blows  to  his  susceptibilities, 
adopts  an  attitude,  and  resolves  on  a  certain  course 
of  conduct.  Some  entrench  themselves  in  silence  and 
disdain,  hoping  to  be  left  in  peace;  others  become 
flatterers,  and  seek  to  purchase  their  repose  by  the 
basest  adulation.  Dostoyevsky,  condemned  to  live 
for  years  in  prison,  in  the  midst  of  a  redoubtable  band 
of  criminals,  who,  having  nothing  to  lose,  feared  nothing 
and  were  capable  of  anything,  chose  a  very  different 
attitude;  he  adopted  a  tone  of  Christian  fraternity. 
This  was  no  new  part  to  him;  he  had  already  essayed 
it  when,  as  a  child,  he  had  approached  the  iron  gate 
in  his  father's  private  garden  and,  risking  a  punishment, 
had  entered  into  conversation  with  the  poor  patients 
of  the  hospital;  again,  when  he  had  talked  with  the 
peasant-serfs  of  Darovoye,  and  tried  to  gain  their  affection 
by  helping  the  poor  women  in  their  field-work.  He 
adopted  the  same  fraternal  tone  later  when  he  studied 
the  poor  of  Petersburg  in  the  small  cafes  and  drink- 
shops  of  the  capital,  playing  billiards  with  them,  and 
offering  them  their  choice  of  refreshments  the  while 
he  tried  to  surprise  the  secrets  of  their  hearts.  Dos- 
toyevsky realised  that  he  would  never  become  a  great 
writer  by  frequenting   elegant   drawing-rooms,   full  of 

62 


PRISON   LIFE  63 

polite  people  in  well-cut  coats,  with  fashionable  cravats, 
empty  heads,  anaemic  hearts  and  colourless  souls. 
Every  writer  depends  on  the  people,  on  the  simple  souls 
who  have  never  been  taught  the  art  of  hiding  their 
sufferings  under  a  veil  of  trivial  words.  The  moujiks 
of  Yasnaia  Poliana  taught  Tolstoy  more  than  his  Moscow 
friends  could  teach  him.  The  peasants  who  accompanied 
Turgenev  on  his  sporting  expeditions  gave  him  more 
original  ideas  than  his  European  friends.  Dostoyevsky 
in  his  turn  depended  on  poor  people,  and  from  his  child- 
hood, instinctively  sought  a  means  of  approaching  them. 
This  science,  which  he  had  already  acquired  to  some 
extent,  was  to  prove  of  the  greatest  service  to  him  in 
Siberia. 

Dostoyevsky  has  not  concealed  from  us  his  method 
of  making  himself  beloved  by  his  fellow-convicts.  In 
his  novel.  The  Idiot,  he  describes  his  first  steps  in  detail. 
Prince  Mishkin,  the  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  ancestors 
of  European  culture,  is  travelling  on  a  cold  winter's 
day.  He  is  a  Russian,  but  having  spent  all  his  youth 
in  Switzerland,  he  knows  little  of  his  father]and.  Russia 
interests  and  attracts  him  greatly;  he  longs  to  enter 
into  her  soul  and  discover  her  secrets.  As  the  Prince 
is  poor,  he  travels  third  class.  He  is  no  snob;  his 
coarse,  common  fellow-travellers  inspire  no  disgust  in 
him.  They  are  the  first  real  Russians  he  has  seen; 
in  Switzerland  he  met  only  our  intellectuals,  who  aped 
Europeans,  and  political  refugees,  who,  speaking  a 
horrible  jargon  they  called  Russian,  posed  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  sacred  dreams  of  our  nation.  Prince 
Mishkin  realises  that  hitherto  he  had  seen  only  copies 
and  caricatures,  he  longs  to  know  the  originals  at  last. 
Looking  sympathetically  at  his  third-class  companions, 
he  waits  only  for  the  first  sentence  to  enter  into  conver- 
sation with  them.  His  fellow-travellers  observe  him 
with  curiosity ;   they  had  never  seen  such  a  bird  at  close 


64  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

quarters  before.  The  Prince's  polite  manners  and 
European  dress  seemed  ridiculous  to  them.  They 
entered  into  conversation  with  him  to  make  a  fool  of 
him,  that  they  might  have  some  fun  at  his  expense. 
They  laughed  rudely,  nudging  each  other,  at  the  Prince's 
first  words;  but  gradually,  as  he  went  on  speaking, 
they  ceased  to  laugh.  His  charming  courtesy,  his 
freedom  from  snobbishness,  his  ingenuous  manner  of 
treating  them  as  his  equals,  as  people  of  his  own  world, 
made  them  realise  that  they  were  in  the  presence  of 
an  extremely  rare  and  curious  creature — a  true  Christian. 
The  youthful  Rogogin  feels  the  attraction  of  this 
Christian  kindness,  and  hastens  to  pour  out  the  secret 
of  his  heart  to  this  distinguished  unknown,  who  listens 
to  him  with  so  much  interest.  Though  illiterate, 
Rogogin  is  very  intelligent ;  he  understands  that  Prince 
Mishkin  is  morally  his  superior.  He  admires  and 
reverences  him,  but  he  sees  clearly  that  the  poor  Prince 
is  but  a  big  child,  an  artless  dreamer,  who  has  no  know- 
ledge of  life.  He  knows  how  malicious  and  relentless 
the  world  is.  The  idea  of  protecting  this  charming 
Prince  enters  Rogogin's  noble  heart.  "  Dear  Prince," 
he  says,  when  he  takes  leave  of  him  in  the  station  at 
Petersburg,  "  Come  and  see  me.  I  will  have  a  good 
pelisse  made  for  you,  and  I  will  give  you  money  and 
magnificent  clothes,  suitable  to  your  rank." 

Dostoyevsky  arrived  in  Siberia  on  a  cold  winter's 
day.  He  travelled  third-class,  in  company  with  thieves 
and  murderers,  whom  the  mother- country  was  sending 
away  from  her  to  the  different  convict-stations  of 
Siberia.  He  observed  his  new  companions  with  curiosity. 
Here  it  was  at  last,  the  real  Russia  which  he  had  vainly 
sought  in  Petersburg  !  Here  they  were,  those  Russians, 
a  curious  mixture  of  Slavs  and  Mongolians,  who  had 
conquered  a  sixth  part  of  the  world  !  Dostoyevsky 
studied  the  gloomy  faces  of  his  fellow-travellers,  and 


PRISON   LIFE  65 

that  second  sight  which  all  serious  writers  have  more 
or  less,  enabled  him  to  decipher  their  thoughts  and  read 
their    child-like    hearts.     He    looked    sympathetically 
at  the  convicts  who  were  walking  by  his  side,  and  entered 
into  conversation  with  them  at  the  first  opportunity. 
The  convicts,  for  their  part,  glanced  at  him  enquiringly, 
but  not  with  friendliness.     Was  he  not  a  noble,  did  he 
not  come  of  that  accursed  class  of  hereditary  tyrants, 
who  treated  their  serfs  like  dogs,  and  looked  upon  them 
as  slaves,  condemned  to  toil  all  their  lives  that  their 
masters  might  live  riotously?     They  entered  into  con- 
versation with  Dostoyevsky,  hoping  to  laugh  at  him, 
and  to  amuse  themselves  at  his  expense.     They  nudged 
each  other  and  mocked  at  my  father,  when  they  heard 
his  first  words ;    but  gradually,  as  he  went  on  speaking, 
the  jeers  and  laughter  ceased.     The  moujiks  saw  before 
them  their  ideal — a  true  Christian,  a  wise  and  modest 
man,  who  placed  God  above  all,  who  sincerely  believed 
that  neither  rank  nor  education  could  open  any  real 
gulf  between  men,  that  all  were  equal  before  God,  and 
that  he  who  is  so  fortunate  as  to  possess  culture  should 
seek  to  spread  it  round  him,  instead  of  priding  himself 
upon  it.     This  was  the  moujiks'  idea  of  true  nobles,  true 
bard ;   but    alas  !    they  very  seldom    encountered    any 
of  this  type.     At  each  word  Dostoyevsky  spoke,  the 
eyes  of  his  companions  opened  more  widely. 

When  Dostoyevsky  wishes  to  draw  his  own  portrait 
in  the  person  of  one  of  his  heroes,  and  to  relate  an  epoch 
of  his  own  life,  he  gives  that  hero  all  the  ideas  and 
sensations  he  himself  had  at  the  period.  It  seems  some- 
what strange  that  Prince  Mishkin  (in  The  Idiot),  who 
was  not  a  criminal  and  had  never  been  tried  and  sen- 
tenced should,  on  his  arrival  at  Petersburg,  talk  of 
nothing  but  the  last  moments  of  a  man  condemned  to 
death.  We  feel  that  he  is  entirely  possessed  by  the 
idea.     Dostoyevsky  explains    this    eccentric   behaviour 


66  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

by  telling  us  that  the  director  of  the  sanatorium  to 
which  the  poor  Prince  had  been  sent  by  his  family,  had 
taken  him  to  Geneva  to  see  an  execution.  These  Swiss 
seem  to  have  had  a  strange  idea  of  the  treatment  suitable 
for  a  nervous  patient;  it  is  not  surprising  that  they 
were  not  able  to  cure  the  Prince.  My  father  made  use 
of  this  somewhat  far-fetched  explanation  in  order  to 
hide  from  the  general  public  that  Prince  Mishkin  was, 
in  reality,  no  other  than  that  unhappy  convict,  the 
political  conspirator,  Fyodor  Dostoyevsky,i  who,  through- 
out the  first  year  of  his  prison  life,  was  hypnotised  by 
his  recollection  of  the  scaffold,  and  could  think  of  nothing 
else.  In  The  Idiot,  Prince  Mishkin  describes  all  the 
impressions  of  the  condemned  man  to  the  servant  of 
the  Epantchin  family.  When  they  question  him  later 
about  the  execution,  the  Prince  replies :  "I  have 
already  told  your  servant  my  impressions;  I  cannot 
talk  about  it  any  more."  The  Epantchin  have  great 
difficulty  in  making  Mishkin  speak  on  the  subject. 
This  was  precisely  Dostoyevsky's  attitude;  he  described 
his  sufferings  to  the  convicts  and  refused  to  discuss 
them  subsequently  with  the  intellectuals  of  Petersburg. 
In  vain  they  would  question  him  eagerly ;  Dostoyevsky 
would  frown  and  change  the  subject. 

It  is  remarkable  that  Prince  Mishkin,  who  falls  in 
love  with  Nastasia  Philipovna,  does  not  become  her 
suitor,  and  says  to  a  young  girl  who  loves  him  and  is 
willing  to  marry  him  :  "I  am  ill,  I  can  never  marry." 
This  was  probably  Dostoyevsky's  conviction  in  early 
manhood;  he  did  not  change  his  opinion  until  after 
his  imprisonment.  The  resemblance  between  Dostoy- 
evsky  and   his   hero   extends   to   the  smallest   details. 

^  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  in  identifying  himself  with 
a  prince,  Dosloyevsky  had  no  snobbish  intention.  He  wanted 
to  show  what  an  immense  moral  influence  a  man  of  lofty  hereditary 
culture  might  have  upon  the  masses  if  he  behaved  to  the  people 
as  a  brother  and  a  Christian,  and  not  as  a  snob. 


PRISON   LIFE  67 

Thus  Prince  Mishkin  arrives  at  Petersburg  without  a 
portmanteau,  carrying  a  small  parcel  containing  a 
little  clean  linen.  He  has  not  a  kopeck,  and  General 
Epantchin  gives  him  twenty-five  roubles.  Dostoyevsky 
arrived  in  Siberia  with  a  little  parcel  of  linen  which  the 
police  had  allowed  him  to  bring  away;  he  had  not  a 
kopeck,  and  the  wives  of  Dekabrists  brought  him  twenty- 
five  roubles,  concealed  between  the  pages  of  a  Bible. 

His  good  reputation  followed  him  to  prison ;  those  of 
his  travelling  companions  who  were  imprisoned  with 
him  at  Omsk  spoke  to  their  new  companions  of  this 
strange  man,  Dostoyevsky,  who  was  to  serve  his  sentence 
among  them.  Certain  good-natured  convicts  were 
already  considering  how  they  could  protect  this  young, 
sickly  fellow,  this  dreamer,  who  had  been  so  busy 
thinking  of  the  heroes  of  his  novels  that  he  had  had  no 
time  to  study  real  life.  The  convicts  said  to  themselves 
that  if  life  was  hard  to  them,  inured  as  they  were  from 
childhood  to  fatigue  and  privation,  how  much  harder 
it  must  be  to  Dostoyevsky,  bred  in  comfort,  and  above 
all,  thanks  to  his  social  position,  accustomed  to  be  treated 
with  respect  by  every  one.  They  tried  to  console  him, 
telling  him  that  life  is  long,  that  he  was  still  young,  that 
there  was  happiness  in  store  for  him  after  his  release. 
They  showed  a  delicacy  of  feeling  peculiar  to  the  Russian 
peasants.  In  The  House  of  the  Dead  my  father  has 
described  how  when  he  was  wandering  sadly  about  the 
prison,  the  convicts  would  come  and  ask  him  questions 
about  politics,  foreign  countries,  the  Court,  the  life  in 
large  cities.  "  They  did  not  seem  to  take  much  interest 
in  my  replies,"  says  my  father;  "  I  could  never  under- 
stand why  they  asked  for  such  information."  The 
explanation  was,  however,  a  very  simple  one;  a  kind- 
hearted  convict  noticed  Dostoyevsky  walking  alone, 
in  a  kind  of  dream,  staring  into  space.  He  was  anxious 
to  distract  his  thoughts.     It  seemed  to  his  rustic  mind 


68  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

impossible  that  a  gentleman  should  be  interested  in 
vulgar  things,  and  the  ingenuous  diplomatist  accordingly 
spoke  to  my  father  of  lofty  subjects  :  politics,  govern- 
ment, Europe.  The  answers  did  not  interest  him, 
but  he  attained  his  end.  Dostoyevsky  was  roused,  he 
talked  with  animation,  his  melancholy  was  exorcised. 

But  the  convicts  saw  more  in  my  father  than  a  sad 
and  suffering  young  man.  They  divined  his  genius. 
These  illiterate  moujiks  did  not  know  exactly  what  a 
novel  was,  but  with  the  infallible  instinct  of  a  great 
race  they  perceived  that  God  had  sent  this  dreamer  on 
earth  to  accomplish  great  things.  They  realised  his 
moral  greatness  and  did  what  they  could  to  tend  him. 
Dostoyevsky  has  told  in  his  Memoirs  how  one  day, 
when  the  convicts  were  sent  to  bathe,  one  of  them  asked 
to  be  allowed  to  wash  my  father.  This  he  did  most 
carefully,  supporting  him  like  a  child,  lest  he  should 
slip  on  the  wet  boards.  "  He  washed  me  as  if  I  had  been 
made  of  china,"  says  Dostoyevsky,  much  astonished 
at  all  this  care.  My  father  was  right.  He  was,  in  fact, 
a  precious  object  to  his  humble  comrades.  They  felt 
that  he  would  render  great  services  to  the  Russian 
community,  and  they  all  protected  him.  One  day, 
exasperated  by  the  bad  food  they  were  given,  they  made 
a  demonstration,  and  demanded  to  see  the  Governor 
of  the  Fortress  of  Omsk.  My  father  thought  it  his  duty 
to  take  part  in  the  manifestation,  but  the  convicts 
would  not  allow  him  to  join  them.^  "  Your  place  is 
not  here,"  they  cried,  and  they  insisted  on  his  returning 
to  the  prison.  The  convicts  knew  that  they  risked 
incurring  a  severe  punishment  for  their  protest,  and  they 
wished  to  spare  Dostoyevsky.     These  humble  moujiks 

1  I  have  mentioned  above  that  Dostoyevsky  took  no  part  in 
any  demonstrations  at  the  Castle  of  the  lingineers.  In  associating 
himself  with  that  of  the  convicts,  he  showed  that  he  had  more 
respect  for  them  than  for  the  Russian  nobles  and  intellectuals. 


PRISON   LIFE  69 

had  chivalrous  souls.  They  were  more  generous  to  my 
father  than  his  Petersburg  friends,  the  mean  and  jealous 
writers  who  did  all  in  their  power  to  poison  his  youthful 
success. 

If  the  convicts  protected  my  father,  he,  for  his  part, 
must  have  exercised  a  great  moral  influence  over  them. 
He  is  too  modest  to  speak  of  this  himself,  but  Nekrassov 
has  proclaimed  it.  The  poet  was  a  man  of  great  dis- 
crimination. In  Poor  Folks,  which  Nekrassov  published 
so  readily  in  his  Review,  he  recognised  Dostoyevsky's 
genius.  When  he  made  the  young  novelist's  acquaintance 
he  was  struck  by  his  purity  of  heart  and  nobility  of  mind' 
The  narrow,  jealous,  intriguing  circle  in  which  the 
Russian  writers  of  the  period  lived  prevented  Nekrassov 
from  becoming  my  father's  friend,  but  he  never  forgot 
him.  When  Dostoyevsky  was  sent  to  Siberia,  Nekrassov 
often  thought  of  him.  This  poet  was  distinguished 
from  others  by  his  profound  knowledge  of  the  souls 
of  the  peasants.  He  spent  all  his  childhood  on  his 
father's  small  estate,  and  in  later  life  went  there  every 
summer.  Knowing  the  Russian  people  and  knowing 
Dostoyevsky,  he  asked  himself  what  the  relations 
between  the  convicts  and  the  young  novelist  would  be. 
Poets  think  in  song,  and  Nekrassov  has  left  us  an  excel- 
lent poem.  The  Wretched,  in  which  he  depicts  Dostoy- 
evsky's life  among  the  criminals.  He  does  not  mention 
him  by  name — the  Censorship,  which  was  very  strict 
at  this  period,  would  not  have  permitted  this — but  he 
told  his  literary  friends,  and  later  Dostoyevsky  himself, 
who  his  hero  was. 

The  story  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  convict,  formerly 
a  man  in  good  society,  who  had  killed  a  woman  in  a  fit 
of  jealousy.  In  prison  he  associates  with  the  vilest 
of  the  criminals,  drinks  and  gambles  with  them  in  spite 
of  his  contempt  for  them.  His  attention  is  attracted 
by  a  prisoner  who  is  unlike  the  rest.     He  is  very  weak. 


70  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

and  has  the  voice  of  a  child ;  his  hair  is  Hght  and  fine 
as  down.i  He  is  very  silent,  lives  isolated  from  the 
others,  and  fraternises  with  no  one.  The  convicts 
dislike  him,  because  he  has  "  white  hands,"  that  is  to 
say,  he  cannot  do  heavy  work.  Seeing  him  toiling  all 
day,  but  achieving  little  on  account  of  his  weakness, 
they  jeer  at  him  and  call  him  "  the  Mole."  They  amuse 
themselves  by  hustling  him,  and  laugh  when  they  see 
him  turn  pale  and  bite  his  lips  at  the  brutal  orders  of 
the  warders.  One  evening  in  prison  the  convicts  are 
playing  cards  and  getting  drunk.  A  prisoner  who  has 
been  ill  a  long  time,  is  dying;  the  convicts  deride  him 
and  sing  blasphemous  requiems  to  him.  "  Wretches  ! 
Do  you  not  fear  God  ?  "  cries  a  terrible  voice.  The 
convicts  look  round  in  amazement.  It  is  "  the  Mole" 
who  spoke,  and  who  now  looks  like  an  eagle.  He  orders 
them  to  be  silent,  to  respect  the  last  moments  of  the 
dying  man,  speaks  to  them  of  God,  and  shows  them  the 
abyss  into  which  they  are  slipping.  From  this  day  forth 
he  becomes  the  master  of  those  whose  conscience  is 
not  quite  dead.  They  surround  him  in  a  respectful 
crowd,  drinking  in  his  words  eagerly.  This  prisoner  is  a 
man  of  learning;  he  talks  to  the  convicts  of  poetry, 
of  science,  of  God,  and,  above  all,  of  Russia.  He  is  a 
patriot  who  admires  his  country,  and  foresees  a  great 
future  for  her.  His  speeches  are  not  eloquent  and  are 
not  distinguished  by  beauty  of  style;  but  he  has  the 
secret  of  speaking  to  the  soul  and  touching  the  hearts 
of  his  pupils.  In  the  poem  the  prisoner  dies,  surrounded 
by  the  respect  and  admiration  of  the  convicts.  They 
nurse  him  devotedly  during  his  illness;  they  make  a 
sort  of  litter,  and  carry  him  out  daily  into  the  prison 
yard  that  he  may  breathe  the  fresh  air  and  see  the  sun 

1  In  the  description  of  Prince  Mislikin,  Dostoyevsky  says  he 
was  very  thin  and  looked  ill,  and  that  his  hair  was  so  fair  that  it 
was  almost  white. 


PRISON   LIFE  71 

he  loves.  After  his  death  his  grave  becomes  a  place 
of  pilgrimage  for  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  district. 

When  my  father  came  back  from  Siberia  Nekrassov 
showed  the  poem  to  him  and  said  :  "  You  are  the  hero 
of  it."  Dostoyevsky  was  greatly  touched  by  these 
words;  he  admired  the  poem  very  much,  but  when  his 
literary  friends  asked  him  if  Nekrassov  had  described 
him  faithfully  he  answered  smilingly  :  "  Oh,  no  !  he 
exaggerated  my  importance.  It  was  I,  on  the  contrary, 
who  was  the  disciple  of  the  convicts." 

It  is  difficult  to  say  which  was  right,  Nekrassov  or 
Dostoyevsky.  The  poem  may  have  been  only  a  poetic 
dream,  but  it  shows  what  Nekrassov' s  opinion  of  my 
father  was.  When  he  spoke  of  Dostoyevsky  as  he  did 
in  The  Wretched,  Nekrassov  avenged  him  for  all  the 
base  calumnies  of  his  literary  rivals.  It  is  strange  that 
none  of  Dostoyevsky' s  Russian  biographers,  save 
Nicolai  Strahoff,  have  mentioned  Nekrassov' s  poem, 
although  they  have  faithfully  reported  all  the  ignoble 
slanders  invented  by  young  writers  after  the  success 
of  Poor  Folks.  Yet  they  cannot  have  been  unaware 
that  he  was  the  hero  of  the  poem,  for  Dostoyevsky 
himself  recorded  his  conversation  with  Nekrassov 
on  the  subject  in  his  Journal  of  the  Writer.  It  is  almost 
as  if  they  had  wished  to  conceal  the  Russian  poet's 
conception  of  the  novelist  from  the  public. 


VII 

WHAT   THE    CONVICTS    TAUGHT   DOSTOYEVSKY 

DosTOYEVSKY  had  some  reason  to  declare  that  the 
convicts  had  been  his  teachers.  As  a  fact,  they  taught 
him  what  it  was  above  all  things  important  for  him  to 
learn ;  they  taught  him  to  know  and  to  love  our  beautiful 
and  generous  Russia.  When  he  found  himself  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  in  a  truly  national  centre,  he  felt 
his  mother's  blood  speaking  more  and  more  loudly  in 
his  heart.  My  father  began  to  recognise  that  Russian 
charm  which  is  indeed  the  strength  of  our  country.  It 
is  not  by  fire  and  sword  that  Russia  has  conquered  her 
enemies ;  it  is  the  heart  of  Russia  that  has  formed  the 
vast  Russian  Empire.  Our  army  is  weak,  our  poor 
soldiers  are  often  beaten,  but  wherever  they  pass  they 
leave  imperishable  memories.  They  fraternise  with  the 
vanquished  instead  of  oppressing  them ;  open  their  hearts 
to  them ;  treat  them  as  comrades ;  and  the  vanquished, 
touched  by  this  generosity,  never  forget  them.  ' '  Where 
the  Russian  flag  has  once  flown,  it  will  always  fly,"  we 
say  in  Russia.  My  compatriots  are  conscious  of  their 
charm. 

The  Russian  peasant,  dirty,  wild  and  ragged,  is  in 
fact,  a  great  charmer.  His  heart  is  gentle,  tender,  gay 
/and  childlike.  He  has  no  education,  but  his  mind  is 
\ broad,  clear  and  penetrating.  He  observes  a  great  deal 
and  meditates  on  subjects  that  would  never  come  into 
the  head  of  a  European  bourgeois.  He  works  all  his 
life,  but  cares  nothing  for  profit.  His  material  wants 
are  few,  his  moral  needs  much  more  extensive.     He  is  a 

72 


WHAT   THE   CONVICTS   TAUGHT       73 

dreamer,  his  soul  seeks  for  poetry.  Very  often  he  will 
leave  his  fields  and  his  family  to  visit  monasteries,  to 
pray  at  the  tomb  of  saints,  or  to  travel  to  Jerusalem. 
He  belongs  to  the  Oriental  race  that  gave  the  world 
a  Krishna,  a  Buddha,  a  Zarathustra,  a  Mahommed. 
The  Russian  peasant  is  always  ready  to  leave  the  world 
and  go  to  seek  God  in  the  desert.  He  lives  more  in  the 
beyond  than  in  this  world.  He  has  a  strong  sense  of 
justice:  "  Why  quarrel  and  dispute?  We  should  live 
according  to  the  truth  of  God."  Such  phrases  may  often 
be  heard  from  Russian  peasants.  This  "  truth  of  God  " 
is  much  in  their  minds ;  they  try  to  live  according  to  the 
Gospel.  They  love  to  caress  little  children,  to  comfort 
weeping  women,  to  help  the  aged.  It  is  not  often  one 
meets  a  "  gentleman"  in  Russian  cities,  but  there  are 
plenty  in  our  villages. 

Studying  his  convict  companions,  Dostoyevsky  did 
justice  to  the  generosity  of  their  hearts  and  the  nobility  of 
their  souls,  and  learned  to  love  his  country  as  she  deserves 
to  be  loved.  Russia  conquered  Dostoyevsky's  Lithu- 
anian soul  through  the  poor  convicts  of  Siberia,  and 
conquered  it  for  ever.  My  father  could  do  nothing  by 
halves.  He  gave  himself  heart  and  soul  to  Russia,  and 
served  the  Russian  flag  as  faithfully  as  his  ancestors  had 
served  the  flag  of  the  Radwan.  Those  who  wish  to 
understand  the  change  in  Dostoyevsky's  ideas  should  read 
his  letter  to  the  poet  Maikov,  written  from  Siberia  shortly 
after  his  release.  It  is  a  fervid  hymn  to  Russia.  "  I  am 
Russian,  my  heart  is  Russian,  my  ideas  are  Russian,"  he 
repeats  in  every  line.  When  we  read  this  letter  it  is 
easy  to  understand  what  was  taking  place  in  his  heart. 
Every  serious  and  idealistic  young  man  tries  to  become 
a  patriot,  for  only  patriotism  can  give  him  strength  to 
serve  his  country  well.  A  young  Russian  is  instinctively 
patriotic,  but  a  Slav,  whose  paternal  family  comes  from 
another  country  and  who   has  been  brought    up   in  a 


74  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

different  atmosphere,  cannot  possess  this  instinctive 
patriotism.  Before  offering  his  services  to  Russia,  the 
young  Lithuanian  wished  to  know  what  her  aims  were. 
On  leaving  the  School  of  Engineers,  Dostoyevsky  sought 
this  explanation  in  the  society  of  Petersburg,  and  failed 
to  find  it.  In  the  drawing-rooms  of  Petersburg  he  found 
only  people  who  were  seeking  their  material  advantage, 
or  intellectuals  who  hated  their  fatherland  and  blushed 
to  acknowledge  that  they  were  Russians.  These  languid 
and  listless  people  could  give  my  father  no  idea  of  the 
greatness  of  Russia.  In  the  novel,  The  Adolescent, 
Dostoyevsky  has  drawn  a  curious  type,  the  student 
Kraft,  a  Russian  of  German  origin,  who  commits  suicide 
because  he  is  persuaded  that  Russia  can  play  but  a 
secondary  part  in  human  civilisation.  It  is  very  possible 
that  in  his  youth  Dostoyevsky  had  himself  suffered  from 
Kraft's  disease,  a  disease  to  which  all  Russians  of  foreign 
extraction  are  more  or  less  subject.  My  father  often 
told  his  friends  that  he  was  on  the  verge  of  suicide,  and 
that  his  arrest  saved  him.  But  if  Petersburg  could  not 
teach  Dostoyevsky  patriotism,  the  Russian  people  he 
met  in  prison  soon  taught  him  the  great  Russian  lesson 
of  Christian  fraternity,  that  magnificent  ideal  which 
has  gathered  so  many  races  under  our  banners.  Dazzled 
by  its  beauty,  my  father  wished  to  follow  their  example. 
Was  he  the  first  Slavo-Norman  who  gave  himself  heart 
and  soul  to  Russia?  No.  All  the  Moscovite  Grand 
Dukes  who  founded  Great  Russia,  who  defended  the 
Orthodox  Church  and  fought  valiantly  against  the 
Tartars,  were  also  Slavo-Normans,  the  descendants  of 
Prince  Rurik.  Thanks  to  their  Norman  perspicacity, 
these  first  Russian  patriots  understood  our  great  Idea 
better  even  than  the  Russians  themselves  in  their  national 
infancy.  It  often  happens  that  young  nations  serve 
their  national  idea  instinctively,  without  understanding 
it  very  well,  and  thus  their  patriotism  is  never  very 


WHAT   THE   CONVICTS   TAUGHT      75 

profound.  It  is  only  when  they  mature  that  nations 
fully  realise  the  idea  they  have  been  building  up,  and, 
understanding  at  last  the  services  their  ancestors  have 
rendered  to  humanity,  become  proud  of  their  country. 
Among  races  which  are  growing  old,  patriotism  reaches 
its  apogee,  and  often  dazzles  them.  It  is  at  this  stage 
that  Napoleons  and  Williams  make  their  appearance; 
inordinately  proud  of  their  national  culture,  they  desire 
to  impose  it  on  others. 

Having  at  last  understood  the  Russian  Idea,  Dos- 
toyevsky  eagerly  followed  the  example  of  the  illustrious 
Slavo-Normans  whose  history  he  knew  so  well,  having 
studied  it  in  his  childhood  in  the  works  of  Karamzin. 
Like  the  Moscovite  Grand  Dukes  of  old,  Dostoyevsky 
explained  the  Russian  Idea  to  his  compatriots;  like 
them,  he  cherished  all  that  was  original  in  Russia  :  our 
ideas,  our  beliefs,  our  customs  and  our  traditions.  He 
inaugurated  his  patriotic  services  by  renouncing  his 
republicanism.  It  had  seemed  very  beautiful  to  him 
once,  when  he  had  expounded  it  in  Petersburg  drawing- 
rooms  to  an  enthusiastic  crowd  of  Poles,  Lithuanians, 
Swedes  from  Finland,  Germans  from  the  Baltic  Provinces, 
and  young  Russians.  In  Siberia,  where  he  was  in  daily 
contact  with  representatives  of  the  Russian  people  from 
every  point  of  our  huge  country,  the  thought  of  intro- 
ducing the  institutions  of  modern  Europe  into  Holy  Russia 
struck  him  as  absurd.  He  saw  that  the  Russian  people 
were  still  in  the  stage  of  Byzantine  culture,  which  had 
been  arrested  in  its  development  by  the  Turkish  conquest 
of  Byzantium.  The  Orthodox  clergy,  who  had  propa- 
gated this  culture  among  the  peasants,  had  been  unable 
to  develop  it,  and  the  Russian  people  continue  to  live 
in  the  fifteenth  century,  retaining  all  the  ingenuous 
mystical  ideas  of  that  period.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
introduction  of  the  European  ideas  of  the  nineteenth 
century  among  persons  so  ill-prepared  to  receive  them 


76  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

could  only  produce  a  terrible  anarchy,  in  which  all  the 
European  civilisation  introduced  at  immense  cost  by 
the  descendants  of  Peter  the  Great  would  be  submerged. 
When  he  took  part  in  Petrachevsky's  conspiracy,  my 
father  dreamed  of  substituting  a  republic  of  intellectuals 
for  the  monarchy.  He  now  saw  that  this  would  be 
impossible,  because  the  people  hated  the  bare  (nobles 
or  intellectual  bourgeois)  with  a  fierce  and  implacable 
hatred.  The  peasants  could  not  forget  the  cruelty  of 
their  masters,  and  they  distrusted  all  nobles  and  all 
educated  persons.  Dostoyevsky  realised  that  the  only 
republic  possible  in  Russia  would  be  a  peasant  republic, 
that  is  to  say,  a  reign  of  ignorance  and  brutality  which 
would  cut  off  our  country  from  Europe  more  than 
ever.  The  Russians  dislike  Europeans,  and  reserve 
all  their  sympathies  for  Slavs  and  the  Mongolian  tribes 
of  Asia,  to  which  they  are  akin.  The  introduction  of  a 
republican  regime  would  tend  to  transform  Russia  into 
a  Mongolian  country,  and  all  the  work  of  our  Tsars 
and  nobles  would  perish.  At  this  period  of  his  life 
Dostoyevsky  loved  Europe  too  much  to  wish  to  separate 
Russia  from  European  influences.  Rather  than  drag 
down  his  country  into  a  gulf  of  ignorance  and  violence, 
he  renounced  his  political  ideas.  This  did  not  happen 
all  at  once.  This  is  what  Dostoyevsky  says  himself  in 
the  Journal  of  the  Writer  :  ' '  Neither  imprisonment  nor 
suffering  broke  us.^  Something  else  changed  our  hearts 
and  our  ideas  :  union  with  the  people,  fraternity  in 
misery.  This  change  was  not  sudden ;  on  the  contrary, 
it  came  about  very  gradually.  Of  all  my  political 
comrades,  I  was  the  one  to  whom  it  was  easiest  to  embrace 
the  Russian  Idea,  for  I  came  of  a  patriotic  and  deeply 
religious  stock.     In  our  family  we  had  been  familiar 

1  AVhen  he  says  "  us "  my  father  refers  to  comrades  of  the 
Petrachevsky  cii'cle,  some  of  whom  also  changed  their  political 
opinions  after  their  imprisonment. 


WHAT   THE   CONVICTS    TAUGHT       77 

with  the  Gospel  from  childhood.  By  the  time  that  I 
was  ten  years  old,  I  knew  all  the  principal  episodes 
of  Karamzin's  Russian  history,  which  my  father  read 
aloud  to  us  every  night.  Visits  to  the  Kremlin  and  to 
the  cathedrals  of  Moscow  were  always  solemn  events 
to  me." 

Recognising  that  the  European  institutions  of  the 
nineteenth  century  were  unsuitable  to  the  Russian  people, 
my  father  considered  other  means  of  ameliorating  the 
civilisation  of  our  country.  He  thought  it  would  be  well 
to  work  for  the  development  of  the  Byzantine  culture, 
which  had  taken  root  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  our 
peasants.  In  its  day,  Byzantine  culture  had  been  of  a 
higher  order  than  the  average  culture  of  Europe.  It 
was  only  when  the  Greek  men  of  learning,  fleeing  from 
the  Turks,  had  sought  asylum  in  the  great  European 
towns,  that  the  culture  of  Europe  began  to  emerge  from 
the  mists  of  the  Middle  Ages.  If  Byzantine  civilisation 
had  helped  to  develop  European  culture,  it  might  well 
do  the  same  for  Russia.  Dostoyevsky  accordingly 
began  to  study  our  Church,  which  had  guarded  this 
civilisation,  and  preserved  it  as  it  had  been  received  from 
Byzantium.  The  last  of  the  Moscovite  patriarchs, 
more  learned  than  their  forerunners,  were  already 
beginning  to  develop  this  civilisation  on  Russian  lines, 
when  their  work  was  interrupted  by  Peter  the  Great. 
At  first  my  father  had  taken  little  interest  in  the  Orthodox 
Church.  There  is  no  mention  of  it  in  any  of  the  novels 
he  wrote  before  his  imprisonment.  But  after  this  the 
Church  figures  in  every  new  book;  Dostoyevsky's 
heroes  speak  of  it  more  and  more,  and  in  his  last  novel, 
The  Brothers  Karamazov,  the  Orthodox  monastery 
dominates  the  whole  scene.  My  father  now  saw  what 
an  important  part  religion  plays  in  Russia,  and  he  began 
to  study  it  with  passion.  Later,  he  visited  the  monas- 
teries and  talked  with  the  monks;    he  sought  to  be 


78  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

initiated  into  the  traditions  of  the  Orthodox  rehgion; 
he  became  its  champion  and  was  the  first  who  dared  to 
say  that  our  Church  had  been  paralysed  since  the  time 
of  Peter  the  Great,  to  demand  its  independence,  and  to 
desire  to  see  a  Patriarch  at  its  head.  The  Russian 
clergy  hastened  to  meet  his  advances.  Accustomed  to 
being  treated  with  scorn  by  Russian  intellectuals,  as  a 
senile  and  senseless  institution,  they  were  touched  by 
Dostoyevsky's  sympathy,  called  him  the  true  son  of  the 
Orthodox  Church,  and  remain  faithful  to  his  memory. 

My  father  also  studied  the  Russian  monarchy,  and 
at  last  realised  that  the  Tsar,  the  so-called  Oriental 
despot,  was  in  the  eyes  of  the  Russian  people  simply 
the  head  of  their  great  community,  the  only  man  in  the 
whole  country  who  is  inspired  by  God.  According  to 
Orthodox  belief,  the  coronation  is  a  sacrament ;  the  Holy 
Spirit  descends  on  the  Tsar,  and  guides  him  in  all  his 
acts.  Formerly  all  Europe  shared  such  convictions; 
but  as  atheistical  opinions  gained  ground  they  gradually 
disappeared,  and  now  Europeans  smile  at  them.  The 
Russians,  who  are  yet  in  the  fifteenth  century,  still 
hold  this  faith  religiously.  Profoundly  mystical,  they 
need  divine  help  and  cannot  live  without  it.  The 
Russians  will  only  obey  a  man  crowned  in  a  cathedral 
of  Moscow  by  an  Archbishop  or  a  Patriarch.  However 
intelligent  a  President  of  the  Russian  Republic  might  be, 
in  the  sight  of  our  peasants  he  would  be  simply  a 
ridiculous  chatterer;  the  halo  of  the  coronation  would 
always  be  lacking  to  him.  The  people  would  distrust 
him;  they  are,  unhappily,  well  aware  how  easy  it  is  to 
buy  a  Russian  official.  It  would  be  useless  for  our 
Presidents  to  sign  treaties  and  promise  the  aid  of  Russian 
troops  to  Europeans ;  they  would  never  be  able  to  honour 
their  own  drafts.  It  would  only  be  necessary  to  spread 
a  rumour  that  the  President  had  been  bought  by  Europe 
to  provoke  an  epidemic  of  defaitisme. 


WHAT   THE   CONVICTS   TAUGHT       79 

Realising  the  immense  part  played  by  the  Tsar  in 
Russia,  and  his  moral  power  among  the  peasantry, 
thanks  to  his  coronation,  seeing  that  he  alone  could  keep 
them  united  and  preserve  them  from  the  anarchy  which 
is  always  lying  in  wait  for  Mongolian  races,  my  father 
became  a  monarchist.  Great  was  the  indignation  of 
all  our  writers,  of  all  the  intellectual  society  of  Petersburg 
which  was  hostile  to  Tsarism  when  they  learned  that 
Dostoyevsky  had  abjured  his  revolutionary  creed. 
While  my  father  had  been  studying  the  Russian  people 
in  prison,  these  gentlemen  had  been  talking  in  drawing- 
rooms,  drawing  their  knowledge  of  Russia  from  European 
books,  and  looking  upon  our  peasants  as  idiots,  who 
could  be  made  to  accept  all  laws  and  all  institutions 
without  discussion  or  question.  The  intellectuals  could 
never  understand  the  reasons  for  Dostoyevsky's  change 
of  mind,  and  could  never  forgive  what  they  called  "  his 
betrayal  of  the  holy  cause  of  liberty."  They  hated  my 
father  throughout  his  life  and  continued  to  hate  him 
after  his  death.  Each  new  novel  of  Dostoyevsky's  was 
greeted,  not  with  the  impartial  criticism  which  analyses 
a  work  and  gives  its  author  the  wise  counsels  eagerly 
looked  for  by  a  writer,  but  by  attacks  like  those  of  a 
pack  of  mad  dogs,  throwing  themselves  on  my  father's 
masterpieces,  and,  under  pretence  of  criticising,  biting, 
tearing  their  prey,  insulting  and  offending  him  cruelly. 
The  moral  influence  exercised  by  my  father  on  the 
students  of  Petersburg,  which  grew  ever  greater  as  his 
talents  matured,  infuriated  the  Russian  writers.  When 
Tretiakov  ^  wished  to  include  a  portrait  of  my  father  in  his 
collection  of  "Great  Russian  Writers,"  and  commissioned 
a  famous  artist  to  paint  it,  the  rage  of  Dostoyevsky's 
political  enemies  knew  no  bounds.  "  Go  to  the  exhibi- 
tion and  look  at  the  face  of  this  madman,"  they  shrieked 

1  A  rich  merchant  of  Moscow,  who  bequeathed  a  fine  gallery 
of  national  pictures  to  his  native  town. 


80  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

to  the  readers  of  their  newspapers,  "  and  you  will  realise 
at  last  who  it  is  you  love  and  listen  to  and  read." 

This  ferocious  and  implacable  hatred  wounded  my 
father  deeply.  He  wished  to  live  in  peace  with  other 
writers,  and  to  work  in  concert  with  them,  for  the  glory 
of  his  country.  He  could  not  retract  opinions  based  on 
his  profound  study  of  the  Russian  people,  begun  in 
prison  and  continued  throughout  his  life.  He  felt  that 
he  had  no  right  to  hide  the  truth  from  Russia;  he  was 
constrained  to  show  them  the  abyss  to  which  the  Socialists 
and  anarchists  of  Petersburg  drawing-rooms  were  leading 
them.  The  sense  of  duty  accomplished  gave  him 
strength  to  struggle,  but  his  life  was  very  hard. 
Dostoyevsky  died  without  having  been  able  to  demon- 
strate that  he  was  right.  It  is  we,  the  hapless  victims 
of  the  Russian  Revolution,  who  now  see  all  his  predictions 
fulfilled,  and  have  to  expiate  the  irresponsible  chatter 
of  our  Liberals. 

It  was  not  only  the  Russian  soul  that  my  father 
studied  in  prison.  He  also  made  an  earnest  study  of 
the  Bible.  We  all  profess  to  be  Christians,  but  how 
many  of  us  are  familiar  with  the  Gospels  ?  Most  of  us 
are  content  to  hear  them  in  church,  and  to  retain  some 
vague  idea  of  their  preparation  for  their  first  communion. 
Possibly  my  father  in  his  youth  knew  the  Bible  after 
the  fashion  of  the  young  men  of  his  world — that  is  to  say, 
very  superficially.  He  says  as  much  in  the  auto- 
biography of  Zossima,^  which  is  to  some  extent  his  own : 
"  I  did  not  read  the  Bible,"  says  Zossima,  speaking  of  his 
youthful  years,  "  but  I  never  parted  with  it.  I  had  a 
presentiment  that  I  should  want  it  some  day."  Accord- 
ing to  his  letters  to  his  brother  Mihail,  Dostoyevsky 
began  the  study  of  the  Bible  at  the  Peter-Paul  fortress. 
He  continued  it  in  Siberia,  where  for  four  years  it  was 
1  The  Brothers  Kamarazov. 


WHAT  THE   CONVICTS   TAUGHT      81 

his  only  book.  He  studied  the  precious  volume  the 
wives  of  the  Dekabrists  had  presented  to  him,  pondered 
every  word,  learned  it  by  heart  and  never  forgot  it.  No 
writer  of  his  time  had  had  so  profound  a  Christian  culture 
as  Dostoyevsky.  All  his  works  are  saturated  with  it, 
and  it  is  this  which  gives  them  their  power.  "  What  a 
strange  chance  that  your  father  should  have  had  only 
the  Gospels  to  read  during  the  four  most  important 
years  of  a  man's  life,  when  his  character  is  forming 
definitively,"  many  of  his  admirers  have  said  to  me. 
But  was  it  a  chance  ?  Is  there  such  a  thing  as  chance  in 
our  lives?  Is  not  everything  foreseen?  The  work  of 
Jesus  is  not  finished;  in  each  generation  He  chooses 
His  disciples,  signs  to  them  to  follow  Him,  and  gives 
them  the  same  power  over  the  human  heart  that  He 
gave  of  old  to  the  poor  fishermen  of  Galilee. 

Dostoyevsky  would  never  be  without  his  old  prison 
Testament,  the  faithful  friend  that  had  consoled  him  in 
the  darkest  hours  of  his  life.  He  always  took  it  with 
him  on  his  travels  and  kept  it  in  a  drawer  of  his  writing- 
table,  within  reach  of  his  hand.  He  acquired  a  habit  of 
consulting  it  in  important  moments  of  his  life.  He  would 
open  the  Testament,  read  the  first  lines  he  saw,  and  take 
them  as  an  answer  to  his  doubts. 

Dostoyevsky  wrote  nothing  while  in  his  Siberian 
prison.^  And  yet  he  left  Omsk  a  much  greater  writer 
than  he  had  been  when  he  arrived.  The  young 
Lithuanian,  who  certainly  loved  Russia  but  understood 
very  little  about  her,  was  transformed  into  a  real  Russian 
in  prison.  If  all  his  life  he  retained  the  Lithuanian 
characteristics  and  culture  of  his  forefathers,  he  only 
loved  Russia  the  more  deeply  for  this.     He  judged  her 

1  All  he  did  was  to  make  a  few  notes  of  curious  words  and 
expressions  used  by  the  convicts,  which  were  introduced  by  him 
later  in  The  House  of  the  Dead.  He  wi'ote  them  in  a  httle  book  he 
made  himself,  which  is  now  in  the  Dostoyevsky  Museum  at 
Moscow. 


0- 


?- 


82  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

from  the  standpoint  of  a  benevolent  Slav,  conquered 
by  the  charm  of  Russia.  Our  faults  did  not  alarm  him ; 
he  saw  that  they  arose  from  the  youthfulness  of  the 
nation,  and  believed  they  would  disappear  in  time.  A 
son  of  little  Lithuania,  which  has  had  her  hour  of  glory, 
but  will  probably  have  no  more,  Dostoyevsky  wished  to 
devote  his  talents  to  the  service  of  Great  Russia.  Per- 
haps he  felt  that  it  was  his  mother's  blood  that  had 
given  them,  and  that  therefore  Russia  had  more  right 
to  them  than  Lithuania  or  Ukrainia.  Moreover,  the 
idea  of  breaking  Russia  up  into  a  number  of  little 
countries,  which  finds  so  much  favour  at  present,  was 
non-existent  then,  and  in  working  for  Russia  Dostoyevsky 
thought  he  would  also  be  working  for  Lithuania  and 
Ukrainia. 

A  reverent  admirer  and  passionate  disciple  of  Christ, 
with  a  beloved  country  to  serve,  Dostoyevsky  was  better 
equipped  for  his  lofty  work  than  before  his  imprisonment. 
It  was  no  longer  necessary  for  him  to  imitate  the  Euro- 
pean novelists;  he  had  only  to  draw  his  subjects  from 
Russian  life,  and  to  recall  the  confessions  of  the  convicts, 
the  ideas  and  beliefs  of  our  moiijiks.  This  Lithuanian 
at  last  understood  the  Russian  ideal,  revered  the  Russian 
Church,  and  forgetting  Europe,  gave  himself  up  whole- 
heartedly to  painting  the  Slavo-Mongolian  manners  of 
our  great  country. 


VIII 

DOSTOYEVSKY   A    SOLDIER 

Dostoyevsky's  last  year  in  prison  was  more  tolerable 
than  the  first  three.  The  brute  who  commanded  the 
fortress  of  Omsk  and  poisoned  the  convicts  was  at  last 
superseded.  The  new  Commandant  was  an  educated 
man  of  European  culture.  He  took  an  interest  in  my 
father  and  tried  to  be  of  service  to  him.  He  was  legally 
empowered  to  employ  the  literary  convicts  on  the 
work  of  his  Chancellory.  He  sent  for  my  father,  who 
passed  through  the  town  escorted  by  a  soldier.  The 
Commandant  gave  him  some  easy  work  to  do,  ordered 
good  meals  to  be  served  to  him,  brought  him  books, 
showed  him  the  newspapers,  which  my  father  devoured 
eagerly.i  He  had  seen  no  newspaper  for  three  years,  and 
he  knew  nothing  of  what  was  happening  in  the  world. 
He  seemed  to  be  born  anew;  he  was  soon  to  leave  his 
"  House  of  the  Dead."  "  What  a  blessed  moment  !  " 
he  exclaims  in  describing  his  release  in  his  memoirs. 

Dostoyevsky's  political  comrade,  Durov,  was  released 
at  the  same  time.  But  alas  !  the  poor  fellow  had  not 
the  strength  to  rejoice  in  his  liberty.  "  He  went  out 
like  a  candle,"  says  my  father.  "  He  was  young  and 
handsome  when  he  went  into  captivity.  He  came  out 
half  dead,  grey-haired,  bent,  scarcely  able  to  stand." 

^  My  father  never  made  any  public  reference  to  this  Com- 
mandant, fearing  to  injure  him  in  the  sight  of  the  Government, 
but  he  often  talked  of  him  to  his  relations.  Though  Dostoyevsky 
hated  to  speak  of  the  sufferings  he  had  endured  during  his 
captivity,  he  loved  to  recall  those  who  had  been  good  to  him  in 
his  trials. 

83 


84  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

And  yet  Durov  was  not  an  epileptic,  like  my  father, 
and  he  was  in  excellent  health  at  the  time  of  his  arrest. 
How,  then,  are  we  to  explain  the  different  manner  in 
which  these  two  conspirators  faced  the  world  after  four 
years  of  prison  life?  We  must,  I  think,  look  for  this 
explanation  in  their  nationality.  Durov  was  a  Rus- 
sian; he  belonged  to  a  nation  still  young,  which  soon 
expends  its  strength,  loses  courage  at  the  first  obstacle, 
and  cannot  sustain  a  struggle.  Dostoyevsky  was  a 
Lithuanian,  a  scion  of  a  much  older  race,  and  had  Norman 
blood  in  his  veins.  Resistance  has  always  been  a  joy  to 
the  Lithuanians.  Vidunas,  who  knew  his  people  so 
thoroughly,  has  spoken  thus  on  this  point :  "  Whatever 
may  befall  a  Lithuanian,  he  is  not  discouraged.  This  is 
not  to  say  that  he  is  indifferent  to  his  fate.  His  sensi- 
bility is  too  lively  for  this,  but  it  has  an  elasticity  and 
resilience  of  a  remarkable  quality.  He  can  bear  the 
inevitable  with  courage,  and  face  new  experiences 
steadily.  The  Lithuanian  aspires  involuntarily  to  the 
mastery  of  the  different  elements  of  life.  This  becomes 
very  evident  when  he  has  to  grapple  with  a  difficulty. 
The  tension  of  his  mind  is  manifested  in  a  very  charac- 
teristic fashion;  the  greater  the  difficulty,  the  more  he 
is  disposed  to  accept  all  with  serenity,  and  even  with 
gaiety  and  jest." 

Dostoyevsky  probably  began  this  struggle  for  life  on 
the  very  first  day  of  his  captivity.  He  struggled  against 
despair  by  studying  with  interest  the  characters  of  the 
convicts,  their  manners,  habits,  ideas  and  conversation. 
Seeing  in  them  the  future  heroes  of  his  novels,  he  care- 
fully noted  all  the  precious  indications  they  were  able 
to  give  him;  no  foreigner  can  form  any  idea  of  the 
just,  penetrating  and  observant  mind  of  the  Russian 
peasant.  When,  on  holidays,  the  convicts  got  drunk 
and  were  reduced  to  a  state  of  bestiality,  Dostoyevsky 
sought  solace  for  his  disgust  in  the  Gospel.     "  I  cannot 


DOSTOYEVSKY   A   SOLDIER  85 

see  his  soul;  perhaps  it  is  nobler  than  mine,"  he  would 
say  to  himself,  as  he  looked  at  some  drunken  convict 
reeling  about,  and  shouting  obscene  songs.  He  soon 
realised  that  hard  labour  was  an  excellent  remedy  for 
despair.  He  looked  upon  it  as  a  kind  of  sport,  and  set 
about  it  with  the  passionate  energy  he  brought  to  bear 
on  everything  that  interested  him.  In  certain  chapters 
of  The  House  of  the  Dead  we  see  clearly  what  pleasure 
he  took  in  outdoor  work  or  in  grinding  alabaster.^ 

Obhged  to  conceal  from  the  convicts  the  anger,  con- 
tempt and  disgust  certain  of  their  acts  excited  in  him, 
Dostoyevsky  learned  to  discipline  his  nervous  tempera- 
ment. Reality,  harsh  and  implacable,  cured  him  of 
his  imaginary  fears.  "  If  you  imagine  that  I  am  still 
nervous,  irritable  and  obsessed  by  the  thought  of  illness, 
as  I  used  to  be  at  Petersburg,  you  nmst  get  rid  of  this 
idea.  There  is  not  a  vestige  of  that  left,"  he  wrote  to 
his  brother  Mihail  shortly  after  his  release. 

Another  and  loftier  idea  sustained  and  consoled 
Dostoyevsky  during  his  sojourn  in  the  fortress.  Deeply 
religious  as  he  had  always  been,  he  must  often  have 
asked  himself  why  God  had  punished  him,  the  innocent 
martyr  of  a  noble  theory,  so  severely.  At  that  time  he 
considered  himself  a  hero,  and  was  very  proud  of  the 
Petrachevsky  conspiracy.  The  thought  that  this  con- 
spiracy was  a  crime  which  might  have  plunged  Russia 
into  anarchy,  the  thought  that  a  handful  of  young 
dreamers  had  no  right  to  impose  their  will  on  an 
immense  country  never  entered  his  head  till  much  later, 
some  ten  years  perhaps  after  his  release.  Believing 
himself  blameless,  knowing  himself  to  be  free  from  vice 
and  inspired  only  by  pure  and  lofty  thoughts,  he  must 

^  Speaking  of  come  work  allotted  to  him  in  prison,  he  says  : 
"  I  was  obliged  to  turn  the  wheel ;  it  was  difficult,  but  it  served 
as  an  excellent  gymnastic."  Later  he  describes  how  he  had  to 
carry  bricks  on  his  back,  and  declares  that  he  Uked  this  work, 
because  it  developed  his  physical  strength. 


86  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

have  asked  in  bewilderment  how  he  could  have  deserved 
his  terrible  sufferings,  by  what  action  he  could  have 
incurred  the  wrath  of  a  God  he  had  always  loved  and 
reverenced.  He  then  said  to  himself  that  God  must 
have  sent  these  miseries  upon  him  not  to  punish,  but 
to  strengthen  him  and  to  make  him  a  great  writer, 
useful  to  his  country  and  his  people.  The  ignorant 
public  often  confounds  the  man  of  talent  with  his  talent 
and  cannot  distinguish  between  them.  But  such  men 
themselves  do  not  fall  into  this  error.  They  know  that 
their  talent  is  a  gift  apart  which  belongs  to  the  com- 
munity rather  than  to  themselves.  If  he  be  in  any 
degree  a  believer,  each  writer,  musician,  painter  or 
sculptor  feels  himself  a  Messiah,  and  accepts  his  cross. 
He  has  a  very  definite  sense  that  in  giving  him  a  talent 
God  did  not  mean  to  place  him  above  the  crowd,  but 
rather  to  sacrifice  him  to  the  good  of  others,  and  make 
him  the  servant  of  humanity.  The  greater  his  gift, 
the  more  illuminating  is  this  sense  of  sacrifice  in  the 
eyes  of  its  possessor.  Sometimes  he  rebels,  and  thrusts 
aside  the  bitter  cup  which  destiny  prepares  for  him. 
At  other  moments  he  is  exalted  by  the  thought  that  he 
has  been  chosen  to  make  known  the  ways  of  God  to 
men.  As  the  man  of  genius  meditates  on  his  mission 
his  anger  and  rebellion  disappear.  He  soars  above  the 
crowd ;  he  feels  himself  nearer  to  God  than  other 
mortals,  and  his  zeal  for  his  mission  increases  daily. 
"  Make  me  suffer,  if  so  my  talent  and  my  influence  may 
be  increased,"  he  prays  courageously.  "  Spare  me 
not !  I  will  bear  all  if  only  the  work  Thou  sentest  me 
to  do  be  well  done."  When  the  man  of  genius  has 
reached  this  stage  of  resignation  nothing  can  terrify 
him  any  more,  and  his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  humanity 
has  no  limits.  Later,  after  his  return  to  Petersburg, 
Dostoyevsky  said  to  his  friends  who  denounced  his 
punishment  as  unjust :   "  No,  it  was  just.     The  people 


DOSTOYEVSKY   A   SOLDIER  87 

would  have  condemned  us.  I  realised  that  in  prison. 
And  then,  who  knows,  perhaps  God  sent  me  there  that 
I  might  learn  the  essential  thing,  without  which  there 
is  no  life,  without  which  we  should  only  devour  each 
other,  and  that  I  might  bring  that  essential  thing  to 
others,  even  if  but  to  a  very  few,  to  make  them  better, 
even  if  but  a  very  little  better.  This  alone  would  have 
made  it  worth  while  to  go  to  prison." 

According  to  Russian  law,  Dostoyevsky's  punishment 
was  not  at  an  end  when  he  was  released.  He  had  to 
serve  as  a  soldier  in  a  regiment  at  the  small  Siberian 
town  of  Semipalatinsk  until  the  time  when  he  should 
have  gained  his  commission  as  an  officer  and  be  restored 
to  his  status  as  a  free  man.  But  military  service  was 
almost  liberty  in  comparison  with  what  he  had  endured 
in  the  fortress.  The  officers  of  his  regiment  treated  him 
rather  as  a  comrade  than  as  a  subordinate.  At  this 
period  the  Siberians  had  a  great  respect  for  political 
prisoners.  The  Dekabrists,  who  belonged  to  the  best 
families  of  the  country,  and  who  bore  their  punishment 
without  complaint,  and  with  much  dignity,  prepared 
the  ground  for  the  Petrachevsky  conspirators.  My 
father  would  have  been  received  with  open  arms  by 
the  whole  town,  even  if  he  had  not  been  a  writer.  His 
novels,  which  were  very  much  read  in  the  provinces, 
increased  the  sympathy  of  the  inhabitants  of  Semi- 
palatinsk for  him.  My  father,  for  his  part,  sought 
their  friendship.  The  close  intimacy  in  which  he  had 
been  obliged  to  live  with  the  convicts  had  cured  him 
of  his  Lithuanian  aloofness.  He  no  longer  felt  any 
Lithuanian  scorn  for  the  ignorant  Moscovites ;  he  knew 
that  lack  of  culture  in  the  Russian  is  often  combined 
with  a  heart  of  gold.  He  went  into  society,  took  part 
in  the  amusements  of  Semipalatinsk,  and  made  him- 
self beloved  by  the  whole  town.     The  joy  of  life  filled 


88  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

his  being.  Whereas  poor  Durov  went  out  like  a 
candle  and  died  shortly  after  his  release,  Dostoyevsky 
took  up  life  at  the  point  where  he  had  left  it  at  the 
moment  of  his  condemnation.  He  hastened  to  resume 
amicable  relations  with  his  kinsfolk  at  Moscow  and 
Petersburg.^  He  generously  forgave  them  for  having 
forsaken  him  in  his  prison;  in  his  joy  at  being  at  last 
free,  he  called  his  sisters,  who  had  been  so  cold-hearted 
to  him,  "  the  angels."  He  wrote  to  his  literary  friends 
in  Petersburg,  sent  for  their  works,  and  showed  much 
interest  in  what  they  had  been  doing  during  "  my 
death."  He  formed  friendships  with  officers  and  soldiers 
of  his  regiment.2 

On  the  occasion  of  the  departure  of  one  of  his  new 
friends,  named  Vatilianov,  Dostoyevsky  was  photo- 
graphed with  him  by  the  unskilful  practitioner  of  Semi- 
palatinsk.  To  this  circumstance  we  owe  the  only 
existing  portrait  of  Dostoyevsky  as  a  young  man. 

A  few  months  after  his  release,  Dostoyevsky  met  at 
Semipalatinsk  a  man  of  his  own  world,  the  young  Baron 
Wrangel,  who  had  come  to  Siberia  on  business  con- 
nected with  his  ministry.  He  was  a  native  of  the 
Baltic  Provinces,  of  Swedish  descent,  but  completely 
russified,  and  a  great  admirer  of  my  father's  works. 
He  proposed  that  they  should  live  together,  and  Dos- 
toyevsky accepted  his  offer.  It  is  curious  that  each 
time  Dostoyevsky  agreed  to  live  with  a  comrade,  it 
should  have  been  with  Russians  of  European  origin  : 
Grigorovitch,  a  Frenchman,  and  Wrangel,  a  Swede.  It 
is  probable  that  my  father  could  never  have  endured 

^  My  father  was  able  to  send  his  first  letters  to  his  brother 
Mihail,  and  receive  a  little  money  from  him  before  his  release, 
thanks  to  the  kindness  of  the  Commandant. 

2  Dostoyevsky  tells  us  later,  in  the  journal,  Tlie  Citizen,  that 
he  liked  to  read  aloud  to  his  comrades,  the  soldiers,  in  the  evening 
when  they  were  all  assembled  in  the  barrack-room.  He  admits 
that  these  readings  and  the  discussions  that  followed  them  gave 
him  great  pleasure. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   A   SOLDIER  89 

the  semi-Oriental  habits  of  the  true  Russians,  who 
sleep  all  day  after  playing  cards  all  night.  He  wanted 
a  regular  life  with  a  well-bred  companion,  who  would 
respect  his  hours  of  work  and  meditation.  He  was 
happy  with  young  Wrangel.  They  spent  the  winter  in 
the  town,  and  in  summer  they  rented  a  rustic  dwelling 
in  the  form  of  a  villa,  and  amused  themselves  by 
growing  flowers,  of  which  they  were  both  very 
fond. 

Later,  Baron  Wrangel  changed  his  ministry,  and 
devoted  himself  to  diplomacy.  He  was  our  charge 
d'affaires  in  the  Balkans,  lived  there  a  long  time,  and 
knew  many  remarkable  people.  Nevertheless,  at  the 
close  of  his  life  he  dwelt  solely  upon  his  friendship  with 
Dostoyevsky.  My  compatriots  who  knew  him  in  his 
last  post  as  Russian  Consul  at  Dresden  used  to  tell  me 
that  whenever  a  Russian  made  his  acquaintance.  Baron 
Wrangel  would  always  begin  by  telling  him  that  he  had 
been  the  friend  of  the  great  Dostoyevsky,  and  describing 
their  life  together  at  Semipalatinsk.  "  It  became  a 
veritable  mania,"  said  the  Russians  naively.  They 
would  have  understood  his  enthusiasm  had  its  object 
been  a  Duke  or  a  Marquis — but  a  writer  !  That  was  not 
much  to  boast  of.  The  Baltic  noble  was  more  intelligent 
and  more  civilised  than  my  snobbish  compatriots.  In 
his  old  age,  looking  back  on  his  career,  Baron  Wrangel 
realised  that  the  most  beautiful  page  of  his  life  had  been 
the  friendship  of  the  great  writer,  and  his  greatest  service 
to  humanity  the  few  months  of  tranquillity  his  delicacy 
and  refinement  had  secured  for  a  suffering  man  of  genius, 
neglected  by  his  friends,  who  needed  rest  after  the  terrible 
trial  he  had  undergone. 

Baron  Wrangel  published  his  reminiscences  of  my 
father.  He  could  not  describe  the  intimate  life  of 
Dostoyevsky,  for  my  father  only  spoke  of  this  to  his 
relatives  or  to  friends  of  many  years  standing  and  of 


90  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

proved  fidelity,  but  he  gives  an  excellent  account  of  the 
society  of  Semipalatinsk  and  of  the  part  my  father 
played  in  the  little  town.  Baron  Wrangel's  reminis- 
cences are  the  only  record  we  possess  of  this  period  of 
Dostoyevsky's  life. 


IX 

dostoyevsky's  first  marriage 

The  labour  my  father  had  to  perform  in  prison  was 
very  hard,  but  it  did  him  good  by  developing  his  body. 
He  was  no  longer  a  sick  creature,  or  an  adolescent  whose 
develoj)ment  had  been  arrested.  He  had  become  a 
man,  and  he  longed  for  love.  Any  woman  rather  more 
adroit  than  the  rustic  beauties  of  Semipalatinsk  could 
have  won  his  heart.  Such  an  one  was  to  appear  a  few 
months  after  his  release.  But  what  a  terrible  woman 
fate  had  allotted  to  my  poor  father  ! 

Among  the  officers  of  the  Semipalatinsk  regiment 
there  was  a  certain  Captain  Issaieff,  a  good  fellow  not 
overburdened  with  brains.  He  was  in  wretched  health, 
and  had  been  given  up  by  all  the  doctors  in  the  town. 
He  was  charming  to  my  father,  and  often  invited  him 
to  his  house.  Maria  Dmitrievna,  his  wife,  received 
Dostoyevsky  with  much  grace,  and  exerted  herself  to 
please  him  and  to  tame  him.  She  knew  that  she  would 
soon  be  a  widow  and  would  have  no  means  beyond  the 
meagre  pension  which  the  Russian  Government  gave  to 
the  widows  of  officers,  a  sum  barely  sufficient  to  feed  her 
and  her  son,  a  boy  of  seven  years  old.  Like  a  good 
woman  of  business,  she  was  already  looking  about  for  a 
second  husband.  Dostoyevsky  seemed  to  her  the  most 
eligible  parti  in  the  town ;  he  was  a  writer  of  great  talent, 
he  had  a  rich  aunt  in  Moscow,  who  had  again  begun  to 
send  him  money  from  time  to  time.  Maria  Dmitrievna 
played  the  part  of  a  poetic  soul,  misunderstood  by  the 
society  of  a  small  provincial  town,  and  yearning  for  a 

91 


92  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

kindred  spirit,  a  mind  as  lofty  as  her  own.  She  soon 
took  possession  of  the  ingenuous  heart  of  my  father, 
who,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  fell  in  love  for  the  first 
time. 

This  sentimental  friendship  was  suddenly  interrupted. 
The  captain  was  ordered  to  Kusnetzk,  a  little  Siberian 
town  where  there  was  another  regiment  belonging  to 
the  same  division  as  that  of  Semipalatinsk.  He  took 
away  his  wife  and  child,  and  died  a  few  months  after- 
wards at  Kusnetzk  of  the  phthisis  from  which  he 
had  long  been  suffering.  Maria  Dmitrievna  wrote  to 
announce  her  husband's  death  to  Dostoyevsky,  and  kept 
up  a  lively  correspondence  with  him.  While  waiting 
for  the  Government  to  grant  her  little  pension  she  was 
living  in  great  poverty,  and  complained  bitterly  to  my 
father.  Dostoyevsky  sent  her  nearly  all  the  money  he 
received  from  his  relatives.  He  pitied  her  sincerely  and 
wished  to  help  her,  but  his  feeling  for  her  was  rather 
sympathy  than  love.  Thus  when  Maria  Dmitrievna 
wrote  that  she  had  found  a  suitor  at  Kusnetzk  and  was 
about  to  marry  again,  he  rejoiced ;  far  from  being  heart- 
broken, he  was  delighted  to  think  that  the  poor  woman 
had  found  a  protector.  He  even  made  interest  with  his 
friends  to  procure  for  his  rival  some  coveted  appoint- 
ment. In  fact,  Dostoyevsky  did  not  look  upon  Maria 
Dmitrievna' s  future  husband  as  a  rival.  At  this  period 
my  father  was  not  very  sure  that  he  should  ever  be  able 
to  marry,  and  considered  himself  in  some  degree  an 
invalid.  The  epilepsy  which  had  so  long  been  latent 
in  him  began  to  declare  itself.  He  had  strange  attacks, 
sudden  convulsions  which  exhausted  him  and  made  him 
incapable  of  work.  The  regimental  doctor  who  was 
treating  him  hesitated  to  diagnose  the  malady;  it  was 
not  until  much  later  that  it  was  pronounced  to  be 
epilepsy.  Meanwhile  everybody — doctors,  comrades, 
relatives,  his  friend  Baron  Wrangel,  his  brother  Mihail 


FIRST   MARRIAGE  93 

— advised  him  not  to  marry,  and  Dostoyevsky  resigned 
himself  sadly  to  celibacy.  He  accepted  the  part  of 
Prince  Mishkin,  who,  though  he  loves  Nastasia  Philip- 
ovna,  allows  her  to  go  away  with  Rogogin  and  keeps 
up  amicable  relations  with  his  rival. 

Meanwhile  Maria  Dmitrievna  quarrelled  with  her 
lover,  and  left  the  town  of  Kusnetzk.  She  had  at 
length  received  her  pension,  but  this  pittance  was  quite 
insufficient  for  a  capricious,  idle  and  ambitious  woman. 
My  father  was  now  an  officer,  and  she  came  back  to  her 
first  idea  of  a  marriage  with  him.  In  the  letters  she  now 
wrote  with  increasing  frequency,  she  exaggerated  her 
poverty,  declared  that  she  was  weary  of  the  struggle, 
and  threatened  to  put  an  end  to  herself  and  to  her  child. 
Dostoyevsky  became  very  uneasy;  he  wanted  to  see 
her,  talk  to  her,  and  make  her  listen  to  reason.  As  a 
former  political  prisoner  he  had  no  right  to  quit 
Semipalatinsk.i  His  brother-officers,  to  whom  he  con- 
fided his  desire  to  go  to  Kusnetzk,  arranged  to  send  him 
thither  "  on  regimental  business."  The  division  which 
had  its  headquarters  at  Semipalatinsk  dispatched  to  its 
regiment  at  Kusnetzk  a  wagon-load  of  ropes,  which 
was  bound  by  law  to  be  escorted  by  armed  soldiers  and 
officers.  It  was  not  customary  to  send  Dostoyevsky  on 
such  expeditions— he  was  always  secretly  protected  by 
his  officers — but  this  time  he  was  glad  enough  to  take 
advantage  of  the  pretext,  and  he  travelled  some  hundreds 
of  versts  seated  upon  the  ropes  which  he  was  supposed 

*  Dostoyevsky,  however,  was  often  detailed  to  escort  scientific 
missions  travelling  in  Siberia  by  order  of  the  Government.  Thus 
in  one  letter  my  father  describes  a  visit  to  Barnaoul,  a  small 
town  between  Semipalatinsk  and  Kusnetzk,  which  he  made  in 
tlie  company  of  M.  P.  Semenov  and  his  friends,  members  of  the 
Geographical  Society.  On  hearing  of  their  arrival,  General 
Gerngross,  governor  of  the  town,  invited  all  the  mission  to  a  ball 
at  his  house,  and  was  particularly  polite  to  my  father.  In  the 
sight  of  this  Baltic  general  Dostoyevsky,  who  had  only  just  left 
a  prison,  was  not  a  convict  but  a  famous  writer. 


94  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

to  be  giiardinfif.     Maria  Dniitricvna  received  liiin  witli 
open  arms  and  quickly  regained  her  old  inlluence  over 
him,   which  had  been  somewhat  weakened  by  a  long 
separation.     Touched    by    her    complaints,    her    mis- 
fortunes, and  her  threats  of  suicide,  Dostoyevsky  forgot 
the  counsels  of  his  friends ;    he  asked  her  to  marry  him, 
promising  to  protect  her  and  to  love  her  little  Paul. 
Maria  Dmitrievna  accepted  his  offer  eagerly.     My  father 
returned    to    Semipalatinsk    in   his   wagon,   and   asked 
his  commanding  ofliccr's  permission  to  get  married.     It 
was  granted,  together  with  leave  for  a  few  weeks.     He 
returned    to    Kusnetzk    more   comfortabl}',   in    a   good 
post-chaise  this  time,  meaning  to  bring  back  in  it  the 
new    Madame    Dostoyevsky    and    his    future    stepson. 
My  father's  leave  was  limited — the  Government  did  not 
like  to  have  its  political  prisoners  circulating  freely  in 
the  country — and  he  was  obliged  to  be  married  a  few 
days   after   his   arrival   at    Kusnetzk.     How  joyful  he 
was  as  he  w^ent  to  church  !     Happiness  seemed  at  last 
about  to  smile  on  him,  fate  was  about  to  compensate 
him  for  all  his  sufferings  by  giving  him  a  gentle  and 
loving  wife,   who  would   perhaps  make  him  a  father. 
^Vllile  Dostoyevsky  was  dreaming  thus,  of  what  was 
his   bride   thinking?      The   night   before   her   marriage 
^Nlaria  Dmitrievna  had  spent  with  her  lover,  a  handsome 
young  tutor,  whom  she  had  discovered  on  her  arrival  at 
Kusnetzk,  and  whose  mistress  she   had   long  been  in 
secret.^ 

This  woman  was  the  daughter  of  one  of  Napoleon's 
Mamelukes,  who  had  been  taken  prisoner  during  the 

1  It  is  probable  that  the  Kusnetzk  suitor,  whose  name  I  do 
not  know,  had  broken  ofT  his  engagement  with  Maria  Dmitrievna 
on  diseoverinu  her  chindestine  intrigue  with  the  tutor.  My 
father,  who  had  only  paid  two  short  visits  to  Kusnetzk  and 
knew  no  one  there,  had  no  opportunity  of  discovering  the  liaison, 
more  especially  as  ISiaria  Dmitrievna  always  played  the  part  of 
the  serious  and  virtuous  woman  in  his  presence. 


FIRST   MARRIAGE  95 

retreat  from  Moscow,  and  brought  to  Astrakhan  on  the 
Caspian  Sea,  where  he  changed  his  name  and  his  rehgion 
in  order  to  marry  a  young  girl  of  good  family  who  had 
fallen  desperately  in  love  with  him.  She  made  him  join 
the  Russian  army ;  he  eventually  became  a  colonel,  and 
commanded  a  regiment  in  some  provincial  town.  My 
father  never  knew  him.  By  some  freak  of  Nature, 
Maria  Dmitrievna  inherited  only  the  Russian  tj-pe  of 
her  mother.  I  have  seen  her  portrait.  Nothing  about 
her  betrayed  her  Oriental  origin.  On  the  other  hand, 
her  son  Paul,  whom  I  knew  later,  was  almost  a  mulatto. 
He  had  a  yellow  skin,  black  glossy  hair,  rolled  his  eyes 
as  negroes  do,  gesticulated  extravagantly,  and  was 
malicious,  stupid  and  insolent. 

At  the  time  of  his  mother's  second  marriage  he  was  a 
pretty,  lively  little  boy  whom  my  father  petted  to  please 
Maria  Dmitrievna.  Dostoyevsky  had  no  suspicion  of  the 
African  origin  of  his  wife,  who  concealed  it  carefully; 
he  only  discovered  it  much  later.  Cunning  like  all  the 
women  of  her  race,  she  played  the  model  wife,  gathered 
all  the  lettered  society  of  Semipalatinsk  round  her  and 
organised  a  kind  of  literary  salon.  She  passed  herself 
off  as  a  Frenchwoman,  spoke  French  as  if  it  had  been 
her  mother-tongue,  and  was  a  great  reader.  She  had 
been  well  educated  in  a  Government  estabhshment  for 
the  daughters  of  the  nobility.  The  society  of  Semi- 
palatinsk took  the  newly  married  Madame  Dostoyevsky 
for  a  woman  of  high  character.  Baron  Wrangel  speaks 
of  her  with  respect  in  his  memoirs,  and  says  she  was 
charming.  And  she  continued  to  pay  secret  evening 
visits  to  her  little  tutor,  who  had  followed  her  to  Semi- 
palatinsk. It  amused  her  vastly  to  deceive  the  world 
and  her  poor  dreamer  of  a  husband.  Dostoyevsky  knew 
the  young  man,  as  one  knows  every  one  in  a  small  town. 
But  the  handsome  youth  was  so  perfectly  insignificant 
that  it  never  entered  my  father's  head  to  suspect  a  rival 


96  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

in  him.  lie  thought  Maria  Dmitrievna  a  faithful  wife, 
entirely  devoted  to  him.  She  had,  however,  a  terrible 
temper,  and  gave  way  to  sudden  paroxysms  of  fury. 
My  father  attributed  these  to  her  bad  health — she  was 
somewhat  consumptive — and  forgave  the  violent  scenes 
she  was  constantly  making.  She  was  a  good  house- 
keeper, and  knew  how  to  make  a  home  comfortable. 
After  the  horrors  of  his  prison,  his  house  seemed  a 
perfect  paradise  to  Dostoyevsky.  In  spite  of  the  fore- 
bodings of  his  friends  and  relatives,  marriage  suited  him. 
He  put  on  flesh,  became  more  cheerful,  and  seemed 
happy.  The  Semipalatinsk  photograph  mentioned 
above  shows  us  a  man  full  of  strength,  hfe  and  energy. 
It  is  not  in  the  least  like  the  portrait  of  Prince  Mish- 
kin  in  The  Idiot,  nor  that  of  the  convict-prophet  in 
Nekrassov's  poem.  My  father's  epilepsy,  which  had  at 
last  declared  itself,  had  calmed  his  nerves.  He  suffered 
greatly  during  his  attacks,  but  on  the  other  hand  his 
mind  was  calmer  and  more  lucid  when  they  passed  off. 
The  sharp,  dry,  healthy  air  of  Siberia,  military  service, 
which  took  the  place  of  gymnastics,  the  peaceful  life  of 
a  little  provincial  town,  all  combined  to  improve  Dos- 
toyevsky's  health.  As  always,  he  was  absorbed  by  his 
novels.  He  performed  his  military  duties  conscien- 
tiously, but  his  heart  was  not  in  them.  My  father  was 
longing  for  the  moment  when  he  might  resign  his  com- 
mission and  become  a  free  and  independent  writer  once 
more.  During  his  sojourn  at  Semipalatinsk,  Dostoyevsky 
wrote  two  books,  The  Uncle^s  Dream  and  Selo  Stepant- 
chikovo.  The  heroes  of  these  new  novels  are  no  longer 
cosmopolites,  as  in  his  earlier  works.  They  bear  no 
resemblance  to  the  pallid  citizens  of  Petersburg;  they 
inhabit  the  country  or  small  provincial  towns,  they  are 
very  Russian  and  very  vital.  Reading  these  first  works 
written  after  his  release,  we  see  that  Dostoyevsky  had 
finally   broken  with  the  tradition   of  Gogol,   and   had 


FIRST   MARRIAGE  97 

returned  to  the  idea  of  The  Double.     In  these  new  novels 

he  paints  abnormal  types ;   Prince  K ,  a  degenerate, 

who  becomes  imbecile,  and  Foma  Opiskin,  an  adventurer 
who  possesses  a  great  hypnotic  power.  The  books  are 
gay  and  ironical,  whereas  those  written  before  the 
author's  imprisonment  are  nearly  all  melodramatic. 
It  is  evident  that  Dostoyevsky  had  arrived  at  that 
period  of  his  existence  when  man  no  longer  takes  a 
tragic  view  of  life,  when  he  can  jest  a  little  at  it,  when 
he  can  look  at  it  with  a  certain  detachment,  beginning 
to  understand  that  it  is  but  an  episode  in  the  long  series 
of  existences  which  the  soul  has  to  pass  through.  This 
irony  increases  as  Dostoyevsky' s  talent  matures,  and  as 
he  learns  to  know  men  and  life  more  fully.  It  never 
becomes  bitter  or  malicious,  for  love  of  humanity,  and 
admiration  for  the  Christian  fraternity  of  the  Gospel 
grows  stronger  and  ever  stronger  in  his  heart. 

My  father  received  permission  to  publish  these  two 
novels,  but  he  was  obliged  to  leave  the  manuscript  of 
The  House  of  the  Dead  in  his  portfolio.  He  had  been 
working  at  it  for  a  long  time,  fully  conscious  of  its  value, 
but  it  was  impossible  to  publish  it  on  account  of  the 
Censorship,  which  was  very  strict  in  all  matters  relating 
to  the  prisons.  He  was  now  at  liberty  to  live  in  any 
town  in  Siberia,  but  not  to  go  back  to  Russia.  Never- 
theless, my  father's  one  idea  was  to  return  to  Petersburg, 
a  place  he  hated.  The  nomad  intellectuals  of  Lithuania 
have  this  strange  peculiarity;  they  cannot  live  in  the 
country  or  in  the  provinces;  they  must  be  on  the  spot 
where  they  can  feel  the  pulses  of  civilisation  beating 
most  strongly.  The  great  reforms  which  shed  lustre  on 
the  reign  of  Alexander  II  were  in  preparation  at  Peters- 
burg. My  father  longed  to  be  there  amongst  the  other 
Russian  writers.  He  feared  that  if  he  remained  in 
Siberia  he  would  not  be  in  touch  with  the  new  ideas 
which  were  agitating  our  country.  He  sought  fever- 
u 


98  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

ishly  for  means  of  obtaining  permission  to  return  to 
Russia.  He  wrote  innumerable  letters,  applied  to  all 
his  former  friends,  and  at  last  discovered  a  protector. 
The  Crimean  War  had  just  come  to  an  end.  Everybody 
was  talking  of  General  Todleben,  who  had  greatly 
distinguished  himself,  and  had  been  created  a  Count. 
My  father  remembered  the  brothers  Todleben,  whom 
he  had  known  at  the  School  of  Engineers.  He  wrote  to 
them,  begging  them  to  intercede  with  the  Government 
on  his  behalf.  The  Todlebens  remembered  their  former 
comrade  very  well.  He  had  never  seemed  so  strange 
to  them  as  to  his  Russian  schoolfellows;  they  came 
from  Courland,  and  their  ancestors  must  have  often 
encountered  those  of  Dostoyevsky  on  the  banks  of  the 
Niemen.  They  begged  their  distinguished  brother  to 
plead  my  father's  cause.  The  Russian  Government 
could  refuse  nothing  to  Count  Todleben,  whom  every 
one  called  "  The  Defender  of  Sebastopol."  Dostoyevsky 
soon  received  permission  to  live  anywhere  in  Russia, 
with  the  exception  of  the  two  capital  cities.  My  father 
chose  the  town  of  Tver  on  the  Volga,  a  station  on  the 
railway  line  between  Petersburg  and  Moscow.  He 
resigned  his  commission  joyfully,  said  farewell  to  his 
comrades  and  to  the  kindly  people  of  Semipalatinsk 
who  had  received  him  so  hospitably,  and  set  out  for 
Russia  with  his  wife  and  stepson.  To  make  this  long 
journey  Dostoyevsky  bought  a  carriage  which  he  sold 
on  arriving  at  Tver;  this  was  the  way  in  which  people 
travelled  in  those  days.  How  happy  he  was  as  he 
traversed,  free  and  independent,  the  road  which  ten 
years  before  he  had  passed  along  in  custody  of  a  police 
officer.  He  was  about  to  see  his  brother  Mihail  again, 
to  return  to  that  literary  world  where  he  would  be  able 
to  exchange  ideas  with  his  friends,  to  present  his  dear 
wife,  who  loved  him,  to  his  family.  While  Dostoyevsky 
was  dreaming  thus  in  his  post-chaise,  the  handsome  tutor, 


FIRST   MARRIAGE  99 

whom  his  mistress  was  bringing  along  with  her  hke  a 
pet  dog,  was  following  them  in  a  britshka  one  stage 
behind.  At  every  halt  she  left  him  a  hasty  love-letter, 
informing  him  where  they  were  to  stay  for  the  night, 
and  ordering  him  to  halt  at  the  preceding  station  and 
not  to  overtake  them.  She  must  have  been  immensely 
amused  on  the  way  to  note  the  naive  delight  of  her  poor 
romantic  husband. 

When  he  was  settled  at  Tver,  my  father  soon  became 
intimate  with  Count  Baranov,  the  Governor.  His  wife, 
nSe  Vassiletchikov,  was  a  cousin  of  Count  Sollohub, 
the  writer,  who  had  formerly  had  a  literary  salon  in 
Petersburg.  My  father,  who  had  been  one  of  the 
habitues  of  this  salon,  had  been  presented  to  Mile. 
Vassiletchikov  at  the  time  of  the  success  of  his  Poor 
Folks.  She  had  never  forgotten  him,  and  when  he 
arrived  at  Tver,  she  hastened  to  renew  their  acquaint- 
ance. She  often  invited  him  to  her  house,  and  induced 
her  husband  to  interest  himself  in  my  father's  affairs. 
Count  Baranov  did  his  utmost  to  obtain  permission  for 
Dostoyevsky  to  live  at  Petersburg.  Having  heard  that 
the  Minister  of  Police,  Prince  Dolgoruky,  was  opposed 
to  this,  the  Count  advised  my  father  to  write  a  letter 
to  the  Emperor.  Like  many  other  enthusiasts,  Dostoyev- 
sky was  at  this  time  full  of  admiration  for  Alexander  IT. 
He  composed  some  verses  on  the  occasion  of  his  corona- 
tion, and  hoped  great  things  from  his  reign.  He  wrote 
a  simple  and  dignified  letter  to  the  Emperor,  recounting 
the  miseries  of  his  life,  and  asked  his  leave  to  return 
to  Petersburg.  The  letter  pleased  the  Emperor  and  he 
granted  my  father's  request.  Happy  at  the  thought 
of  being  able  at  last  to  live  in  the  literary  world  near 
his  brother  Mihail,  Dostoyevsky  at  once  set  out  for 
Petersburg  with  his  wife  and  his  stepson,  whom  he  placed 
in  a  cadet  school.  He  soon  obtained  permission  to 
publish  The  House  of  the  Dead.     The  times  of  Nicolas  I 


100  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

were  at  an  end.  Those  in  power  no  longer  feared  the 
light;  on  the  contrary,  they  sought  it.  The  book  had 
an  immense  success,  and  placed  Dostoyevsky  in  the  first 
rank  of  Russian  writers.  He  never  lost  this  proud 
position;  each  new  work  tended  to  confirm  it.  Life 
began  to  smile  on  my  father.  But  fate  had  a  new  and 
cruel  trial  in  store  for  him. 

The  change  of  climate  had  not  suited  Maria  Dmitrievna. 
The  damp,  marshy  climate  of  Petersburg  developed  the 
disease  which  had  long  been  lying  in  wait  for  her.  In 
great  alarm,  she  returned  to  Tver,  which  is  healthier. 
It  was  too  late ;  the  malady  followed  its  normal  course, 
and  in  a  few  months  she  had  become  unrecognisable. 
This  woman,  coughing  and  spitting  blood,  soon  disgusted 
her  young  lover,  who  had  hitherto  followed  her  every- 
where. He  fled  from  Tver,  leaving  no  address.  This 
desertion  infuriated  Maria  Dmitrievna.  My  father  had 
remained  at  Petersburg,  busy  with  the  publication  of  his 
novel,  but  he  often  went  to  visit  his  wife  at  Tver.  In 
one  of  the  scenes  she  made  for  his  benefit,  she  confessed 
everything,  describing  her  love-affair  with  the  young 
tutor  in  great  detail.  With  a  refinement  of  cruelty  she 
told  Dostoyevsky  how  much  it  had  amused  them  to 
laugh  at  the  deceived  husband,  and  declared  that  she 
had  never  loved  him  and  had  married  him  for  mercenary 
motives.  "  No  self-respecting  woman,"  said  this  hussy, 
"  could  love  a  man  who  had  worked  for  four  years  in  a 
prison  as  the  companion  of  thieves  and  murderers." 

My  poor  father  listened  with  anguish  to  the  outpour- 
ings of  his  wife.  This,  then,  was  the  love  and  happiness 
in  which  he  had  been  believing  for  years  !  It  was  this 
fury  whom  he  had  cherished  as  a  loving  and  faithful 
wife  !  He  turned  from  Maria  Dmitrievna  with  horror, 
left  her,  and  fled  to  Petersburg,  seeking  consolation  from 
his  brother,  and  among  his  nephews  and  nieces.  He 
had  arrived  at  the  age  of  forty  without  having  ever  been 


FIRST   MARRIAGE  101 

loved.  "  No  woman  could  love  a  convict,"  he  said  to 
himself,  remembering  the  ignoble  words  of  his  wife.  It 
was  a  thought  worthy  of  the  daughter  of  a  slave,  which 
could  find  no  echo  in  the  heart  of  a  noble-minded 
European.  But  Dostoyevsky  knew  little  of  women  at 
this  period  of  his  life.  The  thought  that  he  would  never 
have  children  or  a  home  made  him  very  unhappy.  He 
put  all  his  bitterness  as  a  betrayed  husband  into  the 
novel  The  Eternal  Husband,  which  he  wrote  later.  It  is 
curious  to  note  that  he  painted  the  hero  of  this  story  as  a 
contemptible  creature,  old,  ugly,  vulgar  and  ridiculous. 
It  is  possible  that  he  despised  himself  for  his  credulity 
and  simplicity,  for  not  having  discovered  the  intrigue 
and  punished  the  treacherous  lovers.  In  spite  of  his 
sufferings  and  despair,  Dostoyevsky  continued  to  send 
money  to  Maria  Dmitrievna,  placed  confidential  servants 
with  her,  wrote  to  his  sisters  at  Moscow,  begging  them  to 
visit  her  at  Tver,  and  later  went  himself  several  times  to 
see  if  his  wife  had  all  she  needed.  Their  marriage  was 
shattered,  but  the  sense  of  duty  towards  her  who  bore 
his  name  remained  strong  in  Dostoyevsky's  Lithuanian 
heart.  Maria  Dmitrievna  was  not  softened  by  this 
generosity.  She  hated  my  father  with  the  rancour  of 
a  true  negress.  Those  who  nursed  her  told  later  how 
she  would  pass  long  hours  motionless  in  an  arm-chair, 
lost  in  painful  meditation.  She  would  get  up  and  walk 
feverishly  through  her  rooms.  In  the  drawing-room 
she  would  stand  in  front  of  Dostoyevsky's  portrait, 
staring  at  it,  shaking  her  fist  at  it,  and  exclaiming  : 
"  Convict,  miserable  convict !  "  She  hated  her  first 
husband  too,  and  spoke  of  him  contemptuously.  She 
hated  her  son  Paul  and  refused  to  see  him.  She  had 
always  been  very  ambitious,  and  she  had  greatly  desired 
to  place  her  son  in  the  most  aristocratic  school  in 
Petersburg.  My  father  did  what  he  could,  but  only 
succeeded   in   obtaining   a   nomination   for   the   Cadet 


102  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Corps,  to  which  the  boy  was  entitled  as  the  son  of  an 
officer.  Seeing  that  Paul  was  idle  and  would  not  work, 
Maria  Dmitrievna  was  deeply  mortified,  and  this 
mortification  changed  to  hatred.  Dostoyevsky  inter- 
ceded in  vain  for  the  child;  his  mother  refused  to  see 
him,  and  my  father  was  obliged  to  send  him  to  spend  his 
holidays  with  my  uncle  Mihail's  family. 


X 

A    PASSIONATE   EPISODE 

On  his  return  from  Siberia  my  father  found  his 
brother  Mihail  surrounded  by  a  group  of  remarkable 
young  writers.  My  uncle  had  distinguished  himself  in 
Russian  literature  by  his  excellent  translations  of 
Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  he  loved  to  gather  the  authors 
of  the  period  round  him  in  his  house.  Seeing  this,  my 
father  proposed  that  he  should  edit  a  newspaper.  He 
was  burning  to  reveal  to  our  intellectuals  the  great 
Russian  Idea  which  he  had  discovered  in  prison,  but 
to  which  Russian  society  was  deaf  and  blind.  The 
paper  was  christened  Vremya  (Time),  and  the  work 
was  divided  between  the  two  brothers;  my  uncle 
undertook  the  editorial  and  financial  business,  my 
father  the  literary  interests.  He  pubhshed  his  novels 
and  his  critical  articles  in  Vremya.  The  paper  was  very 
successful;  the  new  idea  pleased  its  readers.  The 
brothers  invited  the  collaboration  of  very  good  writers, 
earnest  men  who  appreciated  my  father.  Instead  of 
jeering  at  him,  like  his  youthful  literary  associates  of 
old,  they  became  his  friends  and  admirers.  Two 
among  them  deserve  special  mention  :  the  poet  Apollo 
Maikov  (whom  Dostoyevsky  had  known  shortly  before 
his  imprisonment),  and  the  philosopher  Nicolai  Strahoff. 
Both  remained  faithful  to  Dostoyevsky  all  his  life  and 
were  with  him  at  his  death. 

After  The  House  of  the  Dead  my  father  published 
The  Insulted  and  Injured,  his  first  long  novel,  which 
also    had    a    great    success.     Dostoyevsky   was    much 

103 


104  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

courted  and  complimented  in  the  literary  salons  of 
Petersburg,  which  he  again  began  to  frequent.  He 
also  appeared  in  public.  During  his  sojourn  in  Siberia, 
the  Petersburg  students,  male  and  female,  began  to 
play  an  important  part  in  Russian  literature.  In  order 
to  help  their  poorer  comrades,  they  organised  literary 
evenings,  at  which  famous  writers  read  extracts  from 
their  own  works.  The  students  rewarded  them  with 
frantic  applause,  and  advertised  them  enormously,  a 
service  the  ambitious  sought  to  obtain  by  flattering  the 
young  people.  My  father  was  not  of  the  number;  he 
never  flattered  the  students ;  on  the  contrary,  he  never 
hesitated  to  tell  them  unpleasant  truths.  But  the 
students  respected  him  for  it,  and  applauded  him  more 
than  any  of  the  other  writers.  Dostoyevsky's  popu- 
larity was  remarked   by  a  young  girl  named  Pauline 

N She  represented  the  curious  type  of  the  "  eternal 

student,"  which  exists  only  in  Russia.     Pauline  N 

came  from  one  of  the  Russian  provinces,  where  she  had 
rich  relations;  they  allowed  her  enough  money  to  live 
comfortably  in  Petersburg.  Every  autumn  regularly 
she  enrolled  herself  as  a  student  at  the  University,^ 
but  she  never  presented  herself  for  examination,  and 
pursued  no  course  of  study.  However,  she  frequented 
the  University  assiduously,  flirting  with  the  students, 
visiting  them  in  their  rooms,  preventing  them  from 
working,  inciting  them  to  revolt,  getting  them  to  sign 
protests,  and  taking  part  in  all  political  manifestations, 
when  she  would  march  at  the  head  of  the  students, 
carrying  a  red  flag,  singing  the  Marseillaise,  abusing 
and  provoking  the  Cossacks,  and  beating  the  horses  of 
the  pohce.  She  in  her  turn  was  beaten  by  the  police, 
and  would  spend  the  night  in  a  police  cell.     On  her 

^  At  this  period  there  were  no  higher  courses  for  young  girls  in 
Russia.  The  Government  allowed  them  provisionally  to  study 
at  the  University  together  with  the  male  students. 


A   PASSIONATE   EPISODE  105 

return  to  the  University  she  was  borne  aloft  in  triumph 
by  the  students,  and  acclaimed  as  the  glorious  victim 
of  "  Tsarism."  Pauline  attended  all  the  balls  and  all 
the  literary  soirees  given  by  the  students,  danced  and 
applauded  with  them  and  shared  all  the  new  ideas 
which  were  agitating  youthful  minds.  Free  love  was 
then  fashionable.  Young  and  attractive,  Pauline 
adopted  this  new  fashion  ardently,  passing  from  one 
student  to  another,  and  serving  Venus  in  the  belief 
that  she  was  serving  the  cause  of  European  civilisation. 
Seeing  Dostoyevsky's  success,  she  hastened  to  share  this 
latest  passion  of  the  students.  She  hovered  about  my 
father,  making  advances  which  he  did  not  notice.  She 
then  wrote  him  a  declaration  of  love.  Her  letter  was 
preserved  among  my  father's  papers;  it  is  simple, 
naive  and  poetic.  She  might  have  been  some  timid 
young  girl,  dazzled  by  the  genius  of  the  great  writer. 
Dostoyevsky  read  the  letter  with  emotion.  It  came  at 
a  moment  when  he  needed  love  most  bitterly.  His 
heart  was  torn  by  the  treachery  of  his  wife ;  he  despised 
himself  as  a  ridiculous  dupe;  and  now  a  young  girl, 
fresh  and  beautiful,  offered  him  her  heart.  His  wife 
had  been  wrong  then  !  He  might  still  be  loved,  even 
after  having  worked  in  prison  with  thieves  and  mur- 
derers. Dostoyevsky  grasped  at  the  consolation  offered 
him  by  fate.  He  had  no  idea  of  Pauline's  easy  morals. 
My  father  knew  the  lives  of  the  students  only  from 
the  rostrum  whence  he  addressed  them.  They  sur- 
rounded him  in  a  respectful  throng,  talking  of  God, 
of  the  fatherland,  of  civilisation.  The  idea  of  initiating 
this  distinguished  writer,  revered  by  all,  into  the  squalid 
details  of  their  private  conduct  was  never  entertained. 
Later,  if  they  noticed  Dostoyevsky's  love  for  Pauline 
they  were  careful  not  to  enlighten  him  as  to  her  character. 
He  took  Pauline  for  a  young  provincial,  intoxicated  by 
the  exaggerated   ideas  of  feminine  liberty  which  were 


106  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

then  reigning  in  Russia.  He  knew  that  Maria  Dmitri- 
evna  was  given  up  by  the  doctors,  and  that  in  a  few 
months  he  would  be  free  to  marry  PauHne.  He  had 
not  the  strength  to  wait,  to  repulse  this  young  love, 
which  offered  itself  freely,  careless  of  the  world  and 
its  conventions.  He  was  forty  years  old,  and  no 
woman  had  ever  loved  him.  .  .  . 

The  lovers  decided  to  spend  their  honeymoon  abroad. 
My  father  had  long  been  dreaming  of  a  journey  in 
Europe.  Ivan  Karamazow,  the  portrait  of  my  father 
at  twenty,  also  dreams  of  foreign  travel.  According  to 
him,  Europe  is  merely  a  vast  cemetery;  but  he  wished 
to  make  obeisance  at  the  tombs  of  the  mighty  dead. 
Now  that  Dostoyevsky  had  at  last  money  enough,  he 
hastened  to  realise  this  dream  of  long  standing.  The 
date  of  departure  drew  near;  at  the  last  moment  my 
father  was  detained  in  Petersburg  by  business  connected 
with  the  newspaper  Vremya.  My  uncle  Mihail's  drink- 
ing bouts  were  becoming  more  and  more  frequent, 
and  Dostoyevsky  was  obliged  to  look  after  the  whole 
of  the  work.  Pauline  started  alone,  promising  to  await 
him  in  Paris.  A  fortnight  later  he  received  a  letter 
from  her,  in  which  she  informed  him  that  she  loved  a 
Frenchman  whose  acquaintance  she  had  just  made  in 
Paris.  "  All  is  over  between  you  and  me  I  "  she  wrote 
to  my  father.  "It  is  your  fault :  why  did  you  leave 
me  so  long  alone?"  After  reading  this  letter,  Dos- 
toyevsky rushed  off  to  Paris  like  a  madman.  He,  on 
this  his  first  journey  in  Europe,  passed  through  Berlin 
and  Cologne  without  seeing  them.  Later,  when  he 
visited  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  again,  he  begged  pardon 
of  the  Cathedral  of  Cologne  for  not  having  noticed  its 
beauty.  Pauline  received  him  coldly;  she  declared 
that  she  had  found  her  ideal,  that  she  did  not  intend  to 
return  to  Russia,  that  her  French  lover  adored  her  and 
made  her  perfectly  happy.     My  father  always  respected 


A   PASSIONATE   EPISODE  107 

the  liberty  of  others,  and  made  no  distinction  on  this 
point  between  men  and  women.  Paidine  was  not  his 
wife.  She  had  made  no  vows;  she  had  given  herself 
freely  and  therefore  was  free  to  take  back  her  gift. 
My  father  accepted  her  decision  and  made  no  further 
attempt  to  see  her  or  speak  to  her.  Feeling  that  there 
was  nothing  for  him  to  do  in  Paris,  he  went  to  London 
to  see  Alexander  Herzen.  In  those  days  people  went 
to  England  to  see  Herzen  just  as  later  they  went  to 
Yasnaia  Poliana  to  see  Tolstoy.  My  father  was  far 
from  sharing  Herzen's  revolutionary  ideas.  But  he 
was  interested  in  the  man,  and  he  took  this  opportunity 
of  making  his  acquaintance.  He  found  London  much 
more  absorbing  than  Paris.  He  stayed  there  some 
time,  studying  it  thoroughly,  and  was  enthusiastic  over 
the  beauty  of  young  Englishwomen.  Later,  in  his 
reminiscences  of  travel,  he  says  that  they  represent  the 
most  perfect  type  of  feminine  beauty.  This  admiration 
of  Dostoyevsky's  for  young  Englishwomen  is  very 
significant.  The  Russians  who  visit  Europe  arc,  as 
a  rule,  more  attracted  by  French,  Italian,  Spanish 
and  Hungarian  women.  Englishwomen  generally  leave 
them  cold;  my  countrymen  consider  them  "  too  thin." 
Dostoyevsky's  taste  was  evidently  less  Oriental,  and 
the  beauty  of  young  Englishwomen  touched  some 
Norman  chord  in  his  Lithuanian  heart.^ 

My  father  at  last  went  back  to  Paris,  and  having 
heard  that  his  friend,  Nicolas  Strahoff,  was  also  going 
abroad,  he  arranged  to  meet  him  at  Geneva,  and  pro- 
posed that  they  should  make  a  tour  in  Italy  together. 
There  is  a  curious  phrase  in  this  letter  :  "  We  will  walk 
together  in  Rome,  and,  who  knows,  perhaps  we  may 

^  Dostoj^evsky  made  a  curious  prediction  as  to  the  future  of 
England.  He  thought  the  English  would  eventually  abandon 
the  island  of  Great  Britain.  "  If  our  sons  do  not  witness  the 
exodus  of  the  English  from  Europe,  our  grandsons  will,"  he 
prophesied. 


108  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

caress  some  young  Venetian  in  a  gondola."  Such 
phrases  are  extremely  rare  in  my  father's  letters.  It 
is  evident  that  at  this  period  Dostoyevsky  was  longing 
for  a  romance  of  some  sort  with  a  woman  to  rehabilitate 
himself  in  his  own  eyes,  to  prove  that  he  too  could  be 
loved.  And  yet  there  was  no  "  young  Venetian  in  a 
gondola"  during  this  journey  of  the  two  friends; 
Dostoyevsky's  heart  was  with  Pauline.  Yet  he  refused 
to  return  with  Strahoff  to  Paris,  where  he  might  have 
encountered  her,  and  went  back  alone  to  Russia.  He 
described  his  impressions  of  this  first  journey  to  Europe 
in  Vremija. 

Towards  the  spring,  Pauline  wrote  to  him  from 
Paris,  and  confided  her  woes  to  him.  Her  French  lover 
was  unfaithful  to  her,  but  she  had  not  the  strength  to 
leave  him.  She  implored  my  father  to  come  to  her  in 
Paris.  Finding  that  Dostoyevsky  hesitated  to  take  this 
journey,  Pauline  threatened  to  commit  suicide,  the 
favourite  threat  of  Russian  women.  Much  alarmed, 
he  at  last  went  to  Paris  and  tried  to  make  the  forsaken 
fair  one  listen  to  reason.  Finding  Dostoyevsky  too 
cold,  Pauline  had  recourse  to  heroic  measures.  One 
morning  she  arrived  at  my  father's  bedside  at  seven 
o'clock,  and  brandishing  an  enormous  knife  she  had 
just  bought,  she  declared  that  her  French  lover  was  a 
scoundrel,  and  that  she  intended  to  punish  him  by 
plunging  this  knife  into  his  breast ;  that  she  was  on  her 
way  to  him,  but  that  she  had  wished  to  see  my  father 
first,  to  warn  him  of  the  crime  she  was  about  to  commit. 
I  do  not  know  whether  he  was  deceived  by  this  vulgar 
melodrama.  In  any  case,  he  advised  her  to  leave  her 
big  knife  in  Paris,  and  to  go  to  Germany  with  him. 
Pauline  agreed ;  this  was  just  what  she  wanted.  They 
went  to  the  Rhineland,  and  established  themselves 
at  Wiesbaden.  There  my  father  played  roulette  with 
passionate^absorption,  was^delighted^when  he  won,  and 


A   PASSIONATE   EPISODE  109 

experienced  a  despair  hardly  less  delicious  when  he  lost.^ 
Later,  they  went  on  to  Italy,  which  had  fascinated  my 
father  before,  and  visited  Rome  and  Naples.  Pauline 
flirted  with  all  the  men  they  encountered,  and  caused 
her  lover  much  anxiety.  My  father  described  this 
extraordinary  journey  later  in  The  Gambler.  He  placed 
it  in  other  surroundings,  but  gave  the  name  of  Pauline 
to  the  heroine  of  the  novel. 

Considering  this  phase  of  Dostoyevsky's  life,  we  ask 
ourselves  in  amazement  how  it  was  that  a  man  who 
had  lived  so  irreproachably  at  twenty  could  have  com- 
mitted such  follies  at  forty.  It  can  only  be  explained 
by  his  abnormal  physical  development.  At  twenty  my 
father  was  a  timid  schoolboy ;  at  forty  he  passed  through 
that  youthful  phase  of  irresponsibility,  which  most  men 
experience.  "  He  who  has  committed  no  follies  at 
twenty  will  commit  them  at  forty,"  says  the  proverb, 
which  proves  that  this  curious  transposition  of  ages  is 
not  so  rare  as  we  suppose.  In  this  escapade  of  Dos- 
toyevsky's there  was  the  revolt  of  an  honest  man,  of  a 
husband  who  had  been  faithful  to  his  wife,  while  she 
had  been  laughing  at  him  with  her  lover.  My  father 
apparently  wished  to  demonstrate  to  himself  that  he 
too  could  be  unfaithful  to  his  wife,  lead  the  light  life 
of  other  men,  play  with  love,  and  amuse  himself  with 
pretty  girls.  There  are  many  indications  that  this 
was  the  case.  In  The  Gainhler,  for  instance,  Dostoyevsky 
depicts  himself  in  the  character  of  a  tutor.  Rejected 
by  the  young  girl  he  loves,  this  tutor  goes  at  once  in 
search  of  a  courtesan  whom  he  despises,  and  travels 
with  her  to  Paris,  in  order  to  avenge  himself  on  the 
young  girl,   whom  he  nevertheless   continues  to  love. 

1  Dostoyevsky  had  made  acquaintance  with  roulette  during 
his  first  journey  to  Europe,  and  even  won  a  considerable  sum  of 
money.  At  first  gambling  did  not  attract  him  much.  It  was 
not  untU  his  second  visit  with  Pauline  that  he  developed  a  passion 
for  roulette. 


110  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

But  apart  from  the  vengeance  of  a  deceived  husband, 
there  was  also  real  passion  in  this  romance  of  Dos- 
toyevsky's.  Hear  the  hero  of  The  Gambler  speaking 
of  Pauline  :  "  There  were  moments  when  I  would  have 
given  half  my  life  to  be  able  to  strangle  her.  I  swear 
that  could  I  have  plunged  a  knife  into  her  breast  I 
would  have  done  so  exultantly.  And  yet  I  swear,  too, 
by  all  that  is  sacred  to  me,  if,  at  the  summit  of  the 
Schlangenberg  she  had  said  to  me  :  '  Throw  yourself 
over  that  precipice,'  I  would  have  obeyed  her,  and 
even  obeyed  her  joyfully." 

Yet  while  avenging  himself  with  Pauline  on  Maria 
Dmitrievna,  Dostoyevsky  took  all  possible  precautions 
to  prevent  his  sick  wife  from  hearing  anything  of  the 
matter.  He  wanted  to  restore  his  own  self-respect,  but 
he  did  not  wish  to  inflict  pain  on  the  unhappy  sufferer. 
His  precautions  were  so  effectual,  that  only  his  relations 
and  a  few  intimate  friends  knew  anything  of  this 
episode.  But  it  explains  the  characters  of  many  of 
Dostoyevsky's  capricious  and  fantastic  heroines.  Aglae 
in  The  Idiot,  Lisa  in  The  Possessed,  Grushenka  in  the 
Brothers  Karamazov  and  several  others  are  more  or  less 
Paulines.  It  is  in  this  love-story  of  my  father's,  I 
think,  that  we  shall  find  the  explanation  of  the  strange 
hatred-love  of  Rogogin  for  Nastasia  Philipovna. 

Dostoyevsky  returned  to  Petersburg  in  the  autumn 
and  learned  that  his  wife's  illness  had  reached  its  final 
stage.  Full  of  pity  for  the  unhappy  woman, ^  my  father 
forgot  his  anger,  started  for  Tver,  and  persuaded  his 
wife  to  come  with  him  to  Moscow,  where  she  could 
have  the  best  medical  care.  Maria  Dmitrievna's  agony 
lasted  all  the  winter.     My  father  remained  with  her 

1  Throughout  his  haison  with  Pauhne,  Dostoyevsky  never 
ceased  to  provide  for  his  sick  wife.  When  he  was  traveUing  in 
Italy,  he  often  wrote  to  his  brother  Mihail,  requesting  him  to 
send  her  the  money  due  to  him  for  articles  in  Vremya. 


A   PASSIONATE   EPISODE  111 

and  tended  her  unceasingly.  He  went  out  very  little, 
for  he  was  engrossed  by  his  novel,  Crime  and  Punish- 
ment, which  he  was  writing  at  this  time.  When  Maria 
Dmitrievna  died  in  the  spring,  Dostoyevsky  wrote  a  few 
letters  to  his  friends  to  announce  her  death,  mentioning 
her  with  respect.  He  admitted  that  he  had  not  been 
happy  with  her,  but  pretended  that  she  had  loved  him 
in  spite  of  their  disagreements.  The  honour  of  his 
name  was  always  dear  to  Dostoyevsky,  and  led  him  to 
conceal  his  wife's  treachery  from  his  friends.  Only  his 
relatives  knew  the  truth  of  this  sad  story.  My  father 
was  further  anxious  to  hide  the  truth  on  account  of  his 
stepson  Paul,  whom  he  had  brought  up  in  sentiments 
of  respect  for  his  dead  parents.  I  remember  on  one 
occasion  at  a  family  dinner  Paul  Issaieff  spoke  con- 
temptuously of  his  father,  declaring  that  he  had  been 
nothing  but  a  "  wet  rag  "  in  the  hands  of  his  wife. 
Dostoyevsky  became  very  angry;  he  defended  the 
memory  of  Captain  Issaieff,  and  forbade  his  stepson 
ever  to  speak  of  his  parents  in  such  a  manner. 

As  I  have  already  said,  Dostoyevsky  had  intended  to 
marry  Pauline  on  the  death  of  his  wife.  But  since 
their  travels  in  Europe  his  ideas  about  his  mistress  had 
undergone  a  change.  Moreover,  Pauline  was  not  at  all 
inclined  towards  this  marriage,  and  wished  to  keep  her 
liberty  as  a  pretty  girl.  It  was  not  my  father  she  cared 
for,  but  his  literary  fame,  and,  above  all,  his  success 
with  the  students.  Directly  Dostoyevsky  ceased  to  be 
the  fashion,  Pauline  abandoned  him.  My  father  soon 
began  the  publication  of  Crime  and  Punishment.  As 
before,  the  critics  fell  upon  the  first  chapters  of  this 
masterpiece,  and  barked  their  loudest.  One  of  them 
announced  to  the  public  that  Dostoyevsky  had  insulted 
the   Russian   student   in   the   person   of  Raskolnikov.^ 

1  In  his  celebrated  work  Dostoyevsky  showed  most  striking 
clairvoyance.     A  few  days  before  the  publication  of  the  first 


112  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

This  absurdity,  like  most  absurdities,  had  a  great  success 
in  Petersburg.  The  students  who  had  been  Dos- 
toyevsky's  fervent  admirers  turned  against  him  to  a 
man.  Seeing  that  my  father  was  no  longer  popular, 
Pauline  did  not  want  him  any  more.  She  declared  that 
she  could  not  forgive  his  outrage  on  the  Russian  student, 
a  being  sacred  in  her  eyes,  and  she  broke  with  him. 
My  father  did  not  remonstrate;  he  had  no  longer  any 
illusions  as  to  this  light  o'  love. 

chapter  of  Crime  and  Punishment,  a  murder  similar  to  Ras- 
kolnikov's  crime  was  committed.  A  student  killed  a  usurer, 
believing  that  "  all  is  lawful."  My  father's  friends  were  greatly- 
struck  by  this  coincidence,  but  his  critics  attached  no  importance 
to  it.  And  yet  Dostoyevsky's  clairvoyance  should  have  made 
them  understand  that,  far  from  insulting  our  students,  he  merely 
showed  what  ravages  the  anarchist  Utopias,  with  which  Europe 
kept  us  abundantly  supplied,  wrought  in  their  immature  minds. 


XI 

A   LITERARY   FRIENDSHIP 

With  Pauline  N  the  period  of  passion  in  Dostoyev- 
sky's  life  closed.  It  lasted  altogether  but  ten  years,  from 
the  age  of  thirty-three  to  that  of  forty-three.  The  African 
love  of  Maria  Dmitrievna  and  the  somewhat  Oriental  pas- 
sion of  Pauline  N had  left  no  very  pleasant  memories, 

and  in  his  maturity  my  father  returned  to  the  Lithuanian 
ideals  of  his  forefathers.  He  began  to  seek  for  a  pure 
and  chaste  young  girl,  a  virtuous  woman,  who  would  be 
a  faithful  life  companion.  His  two  later  romances 
were  romances  of  the  affections,  and  not  of  the  senses. 
Let  us  consider  the  first  of  these. 

At  the  period  in  question  a  rich  landowner,  M.  Korvin- 
Kronkovsky,  was  living  in  the  heart  of  Lithuania.  He 
belonged  to  the  Lithuanian  nobility,  and  claimed  to 
be  a  descendant  of  Corvinus,  the  somewhat  mythical 
King  of  heathen  Lithuania.  He  was  married  and  had 
two  daughters  whom  he  had  educated  very  carefully. 
The  younger  of  the  two,  Sophie,  afterwards  married 
M.  Kovalevsky,  and  was  Professor  of  Mathematics  at  the 
University  of  Stockholm,  the  first  woman  who  had  been 
admitted  to  such  a  position. ^  The  elder,  Anna,  a  pretty 
girl  of  nineteen,  preferred  literature.  She  was  a  great 
admirer  of  my  father's,  and  had  read  all  his  works. 
The  novel  Crime  and  Pmiishment  made  a  great  impression 
upon  her.     She  wrote  Dostoyevsky  a  long  letter  about 

^  At  the  tiine  of  which  I  am  writing  Sophie  was  but  fourteen, 
and  she  played  no  part  in  Dostoyevsky's  hfe. 
I  113 


114  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

it  which  pleased  him  very  much.  He  repHed  promptly, 
and  a  correspondence  followed,  which  extended  over 
some  months.  Anna  then  begged  her  father  to  take  her 
to  Petersburg  that  she  might  make  the  acquaintance  of 
her  favourite  writer.  The  whole  family  arrived  in 
Petersburg  and  took  a  furnished  flat.  They  at  once 
invited  my  father  to  visit  them,  and  were  charming 
to  him.  Dostoyevsky  was  often  at  their  hospitable 
house,  and  finally  made  an  offer  of  marriage  to  Anna 
Kronkovsky.  He  was  a  widower,  and  tired  of  living 
alone.  Maria  Dmitrievna  had  accustomed  him  to  a 
well-kept  home  and  the  material  comfort  only  a  woman 
can  give  to  a  house.  He  longed  for  children,  and 
recognised  with  terror  that  he  was  leaving  the  years  of 
his  youth  behind  him.  He  was  not  in  love  with  Anna, 
but  he  liked  her  as  a  well-brought-up,  lively  and  amiable 
girl.  Her  Lithuanian  family  pleased  him.  Mile. 
Kronkovsky,  on  her  side,  did  not  love  my  father,  but 
she  had  a  great  admiration  for  his  talent.  She  consented 
joyfully  to  become  his  wife,  but  their  engagement  was, 
nevertheless,  very  brief.  Their  political  opinions  differed 
widely.  Dostoyevsky  was  becoming  more  and  more  a 
Russian  patriot  and  a  monarchist;  Anna  Kronkovsky 
was  a  cosmopolite  and  an  anarchist.  As  long  as  they 
talked  literature,  all  was  well;  but  as  soon  as  they  got 
on  to  political  questions  they  began  to  quarrel  and 
dispute.  This  often  happens  in  Russia,  where  people 
have  not  yet  learnt  to  talk  politics  calmly.  The 
betrothed  couple  saw  in  time  that  their  marriage  would 
be  an  inferno,  and  they  determined  to  break  off  their 
engagement.  But  they  were  not  so  ready  to  give  up 
their  friendship.  After  returning  to  the  country,  Anna 
continued  to  write  to  my  father,  and  he  replied  as  before. 
The  following  winter  the  Kronkovskys  came  to  Peters- 
burg again,  and  Dostoyevsky  was  once  more  a  frequent 


A   LITERARY   FRIENDSHIP  115 

visitor  at  their  house.  My  father's  affection  for  Mile. 
Kronkovsky  was  at  bottom  but  a  literary  friendship 
as  necessary  to  a  writer  as  love  itself.  When  Dostoyevsky 
became  engaged  to  my  mother,  Anna  Kronkovsky  was 
the  first  to  congratulate  him  heartily.  Shortly  after  his 
marriage,  she  went  abroad  with  her  parents  and  met  in 

Switzerland  a  Frenchman,  M.  J. ,  an  anarchist  like 

herself.  They  spent  delightful  hours  together,  destroy- 
ing the  whole  world  and  reconstructing  it  on  more 
harmonious  lines.  This  occupation  was  so  congenial 
to  both  that  they  ended  by  marrying.  An  opportunity 
for  putting  their  anarchist  theories  into  practice  soon 
presented  itself.  The  Franco-Prussian  war  broke  out, 
Paris  was  besieged,  and  the  Commune  established. 
The  two  J — — 's  took  an  active  part  in  its  proceedings. 
After  having  set  fire  to  a  precious  art  collection,  which 
it  was  apparently  necessary  to  destroy  for  the  good  of 

humanity,  Madame  J fled  from  Paris.     Her  husband 

was  arrested  and  imprisoned.  Moved  by  the  despair  of 
his  daughter,  who  adored  her  husband,  M.  Korvin- 
Kronkovsky  sold  part  of  his  estate  and  went  to  Paris, 
where  he  managed  to  procure  his  son-in-law's  escape 
by  spending  100,000  francs.  For  a  long  time  the  couple 
could  not  return  to  France.     They  settled  at  Petersburg, 

where   Madame   J continued   to   be   my   father's 

friend.  Out  of  consideration  for  his  former  fiancee, 
Dostoyevsky  received  her  Communard  husband  cordially, 
though  he  had  nothing  in  common  with  him.     Madame 

J in  her  turn  became  a  friend  of  my  mother's.     Her 

only  son,  Georges  J ,  was  one  of  my  childish  play- 
fellows. 

I  think  my  father  portrayed  Mile.  Kronkovsky  in 
Katia,  Dmitri  Karamazov's  fiancSe.  Katia  is  not 
Russian;  she  is  a  true  Lithuanian  girl,  proud,  chaste, 
and  holding  lofty  ideas  as  to  family  honour,  sacrificing 


116  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

herself  to  save  that  of  her  father,  faithful  to  her  engage- 
ment and  to  her  mission  of  saving  Dmitri  Karamazov 
by  correcting  the  faults  of  his  character.  Russian  girls 
are  much  simpler.  Oriental  passion  or  Slav  pity 
triumphs  over  all  other  considerations  with  them. 


XII 

DOSTOYEVSKY   AS    HEAD    OF   HIS    FAMILY 

About  the  time  of  the  publication  of  my  father's 
famous  novel,  Crime  and  Punishment,  my  uncle  Mihail's 
affairs  began  to  be  much  involved.  The  publication 
of  the  newspaper  Vremya  was  prohibited  on  account  of 
a  political  article  which  had  been  misunderstood  by  the 
Censorship.  A  few  months  later,  Mihail  Dostoyevsky 
obtained  permission  to  bring  out  a  new  journal  under  the 
name  Epoha,  but,  as  often  happens  in  Russia,  the  second 
venture  was  not  so  successful  as  the  first,  though  my 
uncle  secured  the  collaboration  of  the  same  writers. 
Epoha  appeared  for  a  few  months,  and  finally  became 
extinct  for  want  of  readers.  It  was  a  terrible  blow  for 
Mihail  Dostoyevsky.  His  health,  already  undermined 
by  alcoholism,  gave  way,  and  he  died  after  a  short 
illness.  Like  most  of  his  compatriots,  my  uncle  had 
lived  lavishly,  and  had  saved  nothing,  hoping  to  leave 
his  children  a  newspaper  which  would  bring  in  a  hand- 
some income.  His  sons  were  still  very  young,  and  had 
not  finished  their  education.  They  could  not  therefore 
help  their  mother.  My  uncle  left  large  debts.  Accord- 
ing to  Russian  law,  these  debts  were  cancelled  by  his 
death;  his  family,  having  inherited  nothing,  were  not 
obliged  to  pay  them.  Every  one  was  therefore  greatly 
astonished  when  my  father  informed  Mihail  Dos- 
toyevsky's  creditors  that  he  considered  himself  respon- 
sible for  all  his  brother's  liabilities,  and  that  he  was  going 
henceforth  to  work  hard  in  order  to  pay  them  off  as 
soon  as  possible.     He  further  promised  his  sister-in-law 

117 


118  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

to  support  her  and  her  four  children  until  her  sons  could 
earn  their  living.  My  father's  friends  were  very  much 
alarmed  when  they  heard  of  his  resolve ;  they  did  their 
best  to  dissuade  him  from  paying  his  brother's  debts, 
for  which  he  was  not  legally  responsible.  Dostoyevsky 
thought  they  were  urging  him  to  commit  an  infamous 
action.  They  failed  to  understand  each  other.  My 
father's  literary  comrades  argued  as  Russians,  Dos- 
toyevsky thought  as  a  Lithuanian.  Much  as  he  had 
learnt  to  admire  Russia,  he  continued  to  live  after  the 
Lithuanian  tradition.  Reverence  for  the  family  was  one 
of  the  ideas  derived  by  his  forefathers  from  the  Teutonic 
Knights.  In  their  more  chivalrous  age  the  family  was 
a  larger  conception  than  with  us.  All  who  bore  the  same 
name  were  considered  as  members,  and  were  responsible 
one  for  the  other.  The  honour  of  the  family  was  their 
supreme  ideal;  men  and  women  lived  entirely  for  this. 
On  the  death  of  the  father  the  eldest  son  became  the  head 
of  the  family  and  ruled  it.  In  the  event  of  his  premature 
death,  the  second  son  took  his  place  and  inherited  all 
his  obligations.  Not  for  nothing  did  Dostoyevsky 
admire  the  Gothic  beauty  of  Cologne  Cathedral;  his 
own  soul  was  Gothic  !  He  thought  it  quite  a  matter  of 
course  that  he  should  sacrifice  himself  for  his  brother's 
family,  and  assume  responsibility  for  all  his  debts.  On 
their  side,  my  father's  friends  naturally  looked  upon 
such  conduct  as  fantastic,  for  in  the  Byzantine  civilisa- 
tion of  Russia  the  idea  of  the  family  is  almost  non- 
existent. People  exert  themselves  more  or  less  on  behalf 
of  their  children,  but  they  are  generally  indifferent  to 
the  fate  of  their  brothers  and'  sisters.  "  I  did  not  incur 
these  debts,  why  should  I  pay  them?  "  every  Russian 
would  have  said  in  my  father's  place,  and  every  Russian 
would  have  considered  his  determination  romantic  to 
the  verge  of  absurdity.  Far  from  thinking  himself  in 
any  way  ridiculous,  my  father  took  his  duties  as  head 


DOSTOYEVSKY   HEAD   OF   FAMILY     119 

of  the  family  very  seriously.  If  he  sacrificed  his  life  to 
the  memory  of  his  brother  Mihail,  he  expected  that 
his  nephews  and  nieces,  for  their  part,  should  look  up 
to  him  as  their  guide  and  protector  and  follow  his 
advice.  This  attitude  exasperated  my  uncle's  children. 
They  were  quite  ready  to  live  at  their  uncle's  expense, 
but  were  by  no  means  inclined  to  obey  him.  They 
laughed  at  Dostoyevsky  behind  his  back,  and  deceived 
him.  One  of  his  nieces,  his  favourite,  had  a  student 
lover,  a  somewhat  insignificant  young  man,  who  hated 
Dostoyevsky,  "  because  he  had  insulted  the  Russian 
student  in  the  person  of  Raskolnikov."  One  day 
when  discussing  political  questions,  he  spoke  most 
disrespectfully  to  my  father.  Dostoyevsky  was  very 
angry,  and  desired  his  sister-in-law  not  to  receive  the 
impertinent  youth  at  her  house  in  future.  They 
pretended  to  obey,  but  they  entertained  the  young 
man  secretly.  As  soon  as  he  had  finished  his  studies 
at  the  University  and  obtained  a  post  in  one  of  the 
Ministries,  he  hastened  to  marry  my  cousin.  The 
ungrateful  girl  took  a  delight  in  getting  married 
clandestinely,  without  inviting  my  father  to  the  wedding, 
at  a  time  when  Dostoyevsky  was  working  like  a  slave  to 
support  her  family.  When  she  met  him  later  at  her 
mother's  house,  the  bride  laughed  in  his  face,  and  treated 
him  as  an  old  imbecile.  My  father  was  cut  to  the  heart 
by  this  ingratitude.  He  loved  his  niece  Marie  as  if  she 
had  been  his  own  daughter,  caressing  and  amusing  her 
when  she  was  little,  and  later  showing  great  pride  in  her 
musical  talent  ^  and  in  her  girlish  triumphs.  Marie's 
husband  soon  realised  the  mistake  he  had  made  in 
quarrelling  with  the  distinguished  writer.     Six  or  seven 

1  My  cousin  was  one  of  Anton  Rubinstein's  best  pupils.  Very 
often  when  my  father  was  invited  to  read  at  a  literary  and  musical 
party,  he  begged  to  be  allowed  to  bring  her  with  him,  and  took 
more  pleasure  in  her  success  than  in  his  own. 


120  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

years  later,  when  my  parents  came  back  from  abroad, 
he  tried  to  re-estabhsh  friendly  relations,  and  to  interest 
my  father  in  his  numerous  children.  Dostoyevsky 
consented  to  receive  his  niece,  but  he  could  not  give  her 
back  his  affection,  which  was  dead. 

The  second  girl  of  the  family  grieved  Dostoyevsky 
still  more  deeply.  She  fell  in  love  with  a  scientist  of 
some  repute,  who  had  been  forsaken  by  his  wife.  This 
woman,  although  she  loved  another  man,  would  never 
agree  to  a  divorce,  which  would  have  released  her 
injured  husband.^  My  cousin  braved  public  opinion 
and  became  the  mistress,  or,  in  the  language  of  the  day, 
"  the  civil  wife  "  of  the  savant,  who  could  not  marry  her. 
She  lived  with  him  till  his  death,  over  twenty  years, 
and  was  looked  upon  by  all  his  friends  as  his  actual  wife. 
In  spite  of  the  serious  character  of  this  connection,  my 
father  could  never  forgive  it.  It  took  place  a  few  years 
after  the  marriage  of  my  parents,  and  my  mother  told 
me  later  that  Dostoyevsky  sobbed  like  a  child  on  hearing 
of  his  niece's  "  dishonour."  "  How  could  she  dare  to 
disgrace  our  fair  name  ?  "  repeated  my  father,  weeping 
bitterly.  He  forbade  my  mother  to  have  any  dealings 
with  the  culprit,  and  I  never  saw  that  cousin. 

As  may  be  supposed,  my  father  was  not  happy  among 
people  so  incapable  of  understanding  him.  He  was  one 
of  those  men,  rare  enough  in  these  days,  who  die  broken- 
hearted if  their  sons  disgrace  themselves,  or  their 
daughters  turn  out  badly.  The  sentiment  of  honour 
dominated  all  others  with  him.  His  conduct  was 
governed  by  the  chivalrous  ideas  of  his  ancestors, 
whereas  his  nephews  and  nieces  had  forgotten  the 
European  culture  of  their  family,  and  preferred  the  easy 
morality  of  the  semi-Oriental  civilisation  of  Russia. 
They  had,  moreover,  inherited  from  their  mother  that 

^  At  this  time  it  was  very  difBeult  to  obtain  a  divorce  in  Russia. 
It  could  not  be  granted  witiiout  tlie  mutual  consent  of  the  parties. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   HEAD   OF   FAMILY     121 

hardness  of  heart  which  is  often  to  be  found  among  the 
Germans  of  the  Baltic  Provinces. 

Dostoyevsky  had  not  only  to  provide  for  his  brother's 
family,  but  for  a  younger  brother,  Nicolai",  an  unhappy 
dipsomaniac.  My  father  pitied  him  greatly,  and  was 
always  good  to  him,  though  he  never  had  the  strong 
affection  for  Nicolai  that  he  had  felt  for  Mihail.  Nicolai 
was  too  uninteresting;  he  thought  only  of  his  bottle. 
Dostoyevsky  also  helped  his  sister  Alexandra,  the  only 
one  of  his  three  sisters  who  lived  in  Petersburg;  her 
invalid  husband  was  unable  to  work.  She  showed  no 
gratitude  for  his  generosity,  and  was  always  quarrelling 
with  him.  Indeed,  the  behaviour  of  the  whole  family 
was  abnormal.  Instead  of  being  proud  to  have  a  genius 
for  their  brother,  they  hated  him  because  he  had  made 
his  name  famous.  My  uncle  Andrey  was  the  only  one 
who  was  proud  of  his  brother's  literary  gifts;  but  he 
lived  in  the  country  and  very  rarely  came  to  Petersburg. 

Odious  as  Dostoyevsky's  relations  were,  he  forgave 
them  much  in  memory  of  his  mother,  and  of  their 
common  recollections  of  childhood  and  youth.  He 
found  it  harder  to  endure  the  malice  and  perversity  of 
his  stepson,  Paul  Issaieff,  to  whom  he  was  bound  by  no 
tie  of  blood.  Idle  and  stupid,  Paul  had  never  worked  at 
the  military  school  where  Dostoyevsky  had  placed  him, 
and  the  school  authorities  had  finally  sent  him  away. 
This  grandson  of  a  slave  fell  a  victim  to  his  stepfather's 
literary  glory;  his  head  was  turned  by  the  success  of 
Dostoyevsky's  novels.  His  arrogance  and  conceit  were 
no  less  marked  than  my  father's  modesty  and  simplicity. 
He  treated  every  one  superciliously,  and  talked  unceas- 
ingly of  his  "  papa,"  the  famous  novelist,  though  he  was 
very  insolent  to  his  stepfather.  He  thought  it  unneces- 
sary to  study  and  exert  himself;  his  "  papa  "  would  give 
him  money,  and  he  had  no  hesitation  in  asking  for  it. 
Dostoyevsky  had  not  brought  up  his  stepson  judiciously. 


122  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Absorbed  in  his  novels  and  his  journahstic  work,  he  was 
unable  to  give  much  time  to  little  Paul,  and  seeing  that 
Maria  Dmitrievna  was  cruel  and  unjust  to  the  child, 
he  felt  a  great  pity  for  the  fatherless  boy,  and  spoilt 
him.  He  gave  him  too  many  dainties  and  toys,  and, 
later,  much  more  pocket  money  than  was  usual  for  boys 
of  his  age.  He  thus  accustomed  him  to  idleness  and 
luxury,  and  Paul  Issaieff  was  never  able  to  correct  his 
faults.  Dostoyevsky  now  recognised  that  he  had 
brought  the  boy  up  unwisely.  "  Another  stepfather 
would  have  been  stricter,  and  would  have  made  Paul 
a  man  capable  of  serving  his  country,"  he  would  say 
sadly  to  his  friends,  and  he  kept  the  good-for-nothing 
lad  with  him  as  a  punishment  sent  by  heaven  for  a 
neglected  duty. 

When  his  Petersburg  relatives  tried  him  too  severely, 

Dostoyevsky  would  go  to  Moscow  to  rest  in  the  home  of 

his  sister  Vera,  who  had  married  a  native  of  Moscow, 

and  had  a  large  family.     These  children  were  simpler 

and  less  overbearing  than  the  nephews  and  nieces  at 

Petersburg.     They    did    not    understand    their    uncle's 

genius,  but  they  loved  him  for  his  gaiety  and  freshness 

of  mind.     He  has  described  these  young  people  under 

the   name   of  the   Zahlebin    family   in   his   novel   The 

Eternal  Husband.     He  himself  figures  in  it  as  Veltsha- 

ninov,  a  man  of  forty,  who  loves  the  young  and  enjoys 

playing     games,    dancing     and     singing    with     them. 

Dostoyevsky  took  a  special  interest  in  his  young  nieces. 

Marie  was  the  favourite  pupil  of  Nicolas  Rubinstein, 

the  Director  of  the  Moscow  Conservatoire.     "  If  she 

had  a  head  to  match  her  fingers,  what  a  great  musician 

she  might  be  1  "   he  would  often  say  of  her.     "  The 

head  "  seems  to  have  always  kept  her  back,  for  Marie 

never  became  famous,  though  she  was  an  accomplished 

pianist,  and  my  father  was  never  tired  of  listening  to 

her  brilliant  playing.     He  was  even  fonder  of  his  niece 


DOSTOYEVSKY   HEAD   OF   FAMILY     123 

Sophie,  an  intelligent  and  serious  girl.  He  believed, 
on  what  grounds  I  know  not,  that  she  had  inherited  his 
literary  talent.  My  cousin  Sophie  talked  a  great  deal 
about  the  novel  she  intended  to  write,  but  she  could 
never  find  a  subject  to  her  taste.  A  few  years  after  the 
marriage  of  my  parents  Sophie  also  married  and  gave 
up  her  literary  ambitions. 

This  somewhat  mediaeval  love  for  all  the  members  of 
my  father's  large  family  distressed  my  mother  con- 
siderably. Brought  up  in  the  Russian  tradition,  she 
thought  that  all  the  money  her  husband  earned  should 
be  devoted  to  his  wife  and  children,  the  more  so  as  she 
did  her  utmost  to  help  him  in  his  literary  labours.  She 
could  not  understand  why  my  father  would  deprive  her 
of  necessaries  in  order  to  help  some  member  of  his 
family  who  did  not  love  him  and  who  was  jealous  of  his 
fame.  It  was  not  until  later,  when  my  brothers  and  I 
were  growing  up,  that  all  Dostoyevsky's  love  was  at  last 
concentrated  upon  us.  But  even  to  the  day  of  his 
death  he  helped  his  brother  Nicolai  and  the  worthless 
Paul  Issaieff. 


XIII 

MY   mother's    family    AND    ITS    ORIGIN 

DosTOYEVSKY  sooii  learned  what  it  was  to  have 
debts.  Scarcely  had  he  signed  the  papers  taking  over 
his  brother's  liabilities  when  the  creditors,  who  ought 
to  have  been  grateful  to  him  for  recognising  obligations 
which  the  law  declared  null  and  void,  became  extremely 
insolent,  insisting  on  the  immediate  payment  of  their 
claims,  and  threatening  to  throw  him  into  prison. 
To  satisfy  the  most  inexorable  of  them,  Dostoyevsky  in 
his  turn  got  into  debt,  undertook  to  pay  interest  at  a 
very  high  rate,  and  fell  into  the  clutches  of  an  unscrupu- 
lous publisher,  one  Stellovsky,  who  bought  the  right 
to  bring  out  a  complete  edition  of  his  works  for  an 
absurdly  small  sum.  Stellovsky  further  stipulated 
that  my  father  should  add  to  this  edition  a  new  novel 
of  a  certain  number  of  pages.  This  was  to  be  delivered 
on  the  1st  of  November  of  the  same  year;  if  it  should 
not  be  finished  by  that  date,  Dostoyevsky  would  lose 
his  copyright  and  his  works  would  become  the  property 
of  Stellovsky.  Harassed  by  his  brother  Mihail's 
creditors,  my  father  was  forced  to  accept  these  barbarous 
conditions.     He    laid    aside    Crime    and    Punishment  ^ 

^  Stellovsky,  who  was  a  regular  usurer,  threatened  to  send  my 
father  to  prison,  and  the  police  despatched  one  of  their  officers  to 
inform  him  of  these  threats.  My  father  received  the  man 
pleasantly  and  talked  to  him  with  so  much  candour  of  his  unfortu- 
nate financial  position  that  the  police  officer  was  deeply  touched. 
Instead  of  helping  Stellovsky  to  get  my  father  imprisoned,  he 
placed  all  his  legal  knowledge  at  Dostoyevsky's  service,  to  enable 
him  to  escape  from  the  usiurer's  toils.  He  conceived  a  great 
admiration  for  my  father,  came  to  see  him  often  and  related  to 
him  many  of  the  strange  experiences  he  had  had  in  the  course  of 
his  career.     It  was   thanks  to  this  man  that  Dostoyevsky  was 

124 


MY   MOTHER'S   FAMILY  125 

the  epilogue  of  which  was  not  yet  finished,  and  set  to 
work  feverishly  to  write  The  Gambler.  He  worked 
night  and  day  till  his  eyesight  was  affected.  He  was 
obliged  to  consult  an  oculist,  who  forbade  him  to  work, 
telling  him  that  if  he  persisted  in  doing  so  he  would 
become  blind. 

My  father  was  in  despair.  It  was  then  the  beginning 
of  October,  and  there  was  nothing  but  a  rough  copy  of 
the  novel.  Dostoyevsky's  friends  were  very  anxious 
about  him,  and  tried  to  hit  upon  some  way  of  helping 
him.  "  Why  don't  you  engage  a  stenographer?  "  said 
A.  Milinkoff  to  him.  "  You  could  have  dictated  your 
novel  to  him,  and  he  could  have  written  it  for  you." 
At  this  time  stenography  was  still  a  novelty  in  Russia. 
A  certain  Ohlin  had  studied  it  abroad  and  had  just 
started  some  courses,  in  which  he  hurriedly  prepared 
the  first  Russian  stenographers.  My  father  went  to  see 
him,  explained  his  case,  and  asked  Ohlin  to  send  him  a 
good  stenographer.  "  Unfortunately,"  said  Ohhn,  "  I 
cannot  recommend  any  of  my  pupils.  I  only  began 
my  classes  in  the  spring,  I  had  to  close  them  for  the 
summer  holidays,  and  in  these  three  months  my  pupils 
forgot  the  little  they  had  learnt.  I  have  only  one  good 
pupil,  but  she  does  not  want  money,  and  has  taken 
up  stenography  rather  as  a  pastime  than  as  a  means 
of  livelihood.  She  is  still  quite  a  girl,  and  I  don't  know 
if  her  mother  would  allow  her  to  go  and  work  for  a  man. 
In  any  case,  I  will  offer  her  your  work  to-morrow, 
and  I  will  let  you  know  what  she  says." 

The  young  girl  of  whom  Ohlin  spoke  became  in  time 


able  to  treat  the  police  element  in  Crime  and  Punishment  in  so 
masterly  a  manner.  This  episode  illustrates  my  father's  manner 
of  making  friends,  and  shows  us  why  he  was  able  to  transform 
the  most  savage  convicts  into  faithful  servants.  It  also  indicates 
that  the  character  of  Prince  Mishkin  in  The  Idiot,  who  had  the 
same  faculty  of  transforming  his  enemies  into  friends,  was  really 
Dostoyevsky's  own  portrait. 


126  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

my  mother.  Before  relating  Dostoyevsky's  romance, 
I  should  like  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  family  of  his 
second  wife,  who  was  his  guardian  angel  for  the  last 
fourteen  years  of  his  life. 

My  maternal  grandfather,  Grigor  Ivanovitch  Snitkin, 
was  of  Ukrainian  origin.  His  ancestors  were  Cossacks 
who  settled  on  the  banks  of  the  Dnieper  near  the  town 
of  Krementshug.  They  were  called  Snitko.  When 
Ukrainia  was  annexed  by  Russia,  they  came  to  live  in 
Petersburg,  and  to  show  their  fidelity  to  the  Russian 
Empire,  they  changed  their  Ukrainian  name  of  Snitko 
into  the  Russian  Snitkin.  They  did  this  in  all  sincerity, 
with  no  thought  of  flattery  or  servility.  To  them 
Ukrainia  always  remained  Little  Russia,  the  younger 
sister  of  the  Great  Russia  which  they  admired  with  all 
their  hearts.  In  Petersburg  my  great-grandparents 
continued  to  live  after  the  Ukrainian  tradition.  At  this 
time  Ukrainia  was  under  the  influence  of  the  Catholic 
priests,  who  were  reputed  the  best  instructors  of  youth 
in  the  country.  Accordingly,  my  great-grandfather, 
although  he  belonged  to  the  Orthodox  Church,  placed 
his  son  Grigor  in  the  Jesuits'  College  which  had  just 
been  opened  in  Petersburg.^ 

My  grandfather  received  an  excellent  education  there, 
such  as  the  Jesuits  generally  give,  but  throughout  his  life 
he  was  the  least  Jesuitical  of  men.  He  was  a  true  Slav  : 
weak,  timid,  kind,  sentimental  and  romantic.  In  his 
youth  he  had  a  grand  passion  for  the  celebrated  Asen- 
kova,  the  only  classical  tragic  actress  we  have  had  in 
Russia.  He  spent  all  his  evenings  at  the  theatre,  and 
knew  her  monologues  by  heart.  At  this  period  the 
managers  of  the  Imperial  theatres  used  to  allow  the 
admirers  of  the  artists  to  go  and  visit  them  behind 
the  scenes.   My  grandfather's  timid  and  respectful  boyish 

^  It  was  subsequently  closed  by  order  of  the  Russian  Govern- 
ment. 


MY   MOTHER'S   FAMILY  127 

passion  pleased  Asenkova,  and  she  distinguished  him 
in  various  Httle  ways.  It  was  to  him  she  would  hand 
her  bouquet  and  her  shawl  when  she  went  upon  the  stage 
to  recite  Racine  and  Corneille's  beautiful  verses ;  it 
was  his  arm  she  would  take  to  return,  trembling  and 
exhausted,  to  her  dressing-room,  while  the  delighted 
audience  applauded  the  beloved  artist  frantically. 
Other  admirers  sometimes  begged  for  these  privileges, 
but  Asenkova  always  declared  that  they  belonged  to 
Grigor  Ivanovitch.  Poor  Asenkova  was  very  ill  and 
weak ;  she  was  consumptive,  and  died  very  young.  My 
grandfather's  despair  was  unbounded;  for  years  he 
could  not  enter  the  theatre,  of  which  he  had  been  a 
devotee.  He  never  forgot  the  great  actress,  and  often 
visited  her  grave.  My  mother  told  me  that  one  day, 
when  she  was  still  a  child,  her  father  took  her  and  her 
elder  sister  to  the  cemetery,  made  them  kneel  down  by 
Asenkova's  tomb,  and  said  to  them  :  "  My  children, 
pray  to  God  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of  the  greatest 
artist  of  our  age." 

I  had  supposed  that  this  passion  of  my  grandfather's 
was  known  only  to  our  own  family.  I  was  therefore 
much  astonished  to  find  it  in  an  historical  journal, 
related  by  an  old  theatre-goer.  He  asserted  that  my 
grandfather's  passion  was  not  the  love  of  a  young  man 
for  a  pretty  woman,  but  admiration  for  the  talent  of  a 
great  artist.  We  must  suppose  that  such  a  passion  is 
very  rare  in  Russia,  or  it  would  not  have  so  impressed 
the  old  chronicler.  He  added  a  detail  which  was  un- 
known to  me.  Shortly  after  the  death  of  Asenkova 
one  of  her  sisters  made  her  dibut  as  a  tragic  actress. 
On  the  evening  of  her  first  performance,  my  grandfather 
reappeared  in  the  theatre  where  he  had  not  been  seen 
since  the  death  of  his  idol.  He  listened  attentively 
to  the  young  dehutante,  but  her  acting  did  not  please  him 
and  he  disappeared  once  more. 


128  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

My  grandfather  was  of  a  type  which  ages  very  early. 
When  he  was  thirty-five  he  had  lost  all  his  hair  and  most 
of  his  teeth.  His  face  was  lined  and  wrinkled,  and  he 
looked  like  an  old  man.  It  was,  however,  at  this  age 
that  he  married  under  somewhat  strange  circumstances. 

My  maternal  grandmother,  Maria  Anna  Miltopeus, 
was  a  Swede  of  Finland.  She  said  that  her  ancestors 
were  English,  but  that  in  the  seventeenth  century  they 
had  left  their  country  as  a  result  of  the  religious  troubles 
there.  They  settled  in  Sweden,  married  Swedes,  and 
subsequently  migrated  to  Finland,  where  they  bought 
land.  Their  English  name  must  have  been  Miltope — 
or  perhaps  Milton  ! — for  the  termination  "  us "  is 
Swedish.  In  Sweden  men  belonging  to  the  learned 
professions — writers,  scientists,  doctors  and  clergymen — 
habitually  added  the  syllable  to  their  names.  I  do  not 
know  what  was  the  calling  of  my  great-grandfather 
Miltopeus;  I  only  know  that  he  had  rendered  such 
services  to  his  country  that  he  was  buried  in  the  Cathe- 
dral of  Abo,  the  Westminster  Abbey  of  Finland,  and  a 
marble  tomb  was  raised  to  his  memory. 

My  grandmother  lost  her  parents  while  she  was  still 
very  young,  and  was  brought  up  by  her  aunts,  who  did 
not  make  her  happy.  As  she  grew  up,  she  became  very 
beautiful,  quite  in  the  Norman  style.  Tall  and  slender, 
with  features  of  classic  regularity,  a  dazzling  complexion, 
blue  eyes,  and  magnificent  golden  hair,  she  was  the 
admiration  of  all  who  saw  her.  Maria  Anna  had  a 
lovely  voice ;  her  friends  called  her  "  the  second  Christine 
Nilsson."  Their  compliments  turned  her  head,  and 
she  determined  to  become  a  professional  singer.  She 
went  to  Petersburg,  where  her  brothers  were  serving 
as  officers  in  one  of  the  regiments  of  the  Imperial  Guard, 
and  disclosed  her  project  to  them. 

"  You  must  be  mad  !  "  exclaimed  they.  "  Do  you 
want  to  have  us  turned  out  of  our  regiment?     Our 


MY  MOTHER'S  FAMILY  129 

brother  officers  would  not  allow  us  to  remain  in  it  if 
you  were  to  become  a  professional  singer."  There  has 
always  been  a  very  severe  etiquette  on  such  points 
in  Russia  :  an  officer  was  obliged  to  resign  before  marry- 
ing an  artiste.  Very  probably  in  my  grandmother's 
time  no  Russian  officer  had  any  relations  on  the  stage. 
Maria  Anna  sacrificed  her  artistic  ambitions  to  the 
military  career  of  her  brothers.  She  did  so  the  more 
readily  because,  soon  after  her  arrival  in  Petersburg, 
she  fell  in  love  with  one  of  their  comrades,  a  young 
Swedish  officer.  They  became  engaged  and  were  about 
to  be  married,  when  war  broke  out ;  the  Swede  was  sent 
to  the  front,  and  was  one  of  the  first  to  fall.  Maria 
Anna  was  too  proud  to  show  her  grief,  but  her  heart 
was  broken.  She  went  on  living  with  her  brothers, 
but  was  perfectly  indifferent  to  men;  they  had  ceased 
to  exist  for  her.  Her  sisters-in-law  found  the  presence 
of  this  beautiful  girl,  who  was  extremely  headstrong 
and  masterful,  most  irksome.  In  those  days  no  single 
woman  of  good  family  could  live  alone ;  she  was  obliged 
to  make  her  home  with  her  relatives.  The  only  way  of 
getting  rid  of  her  was  to  marry  her.  Her  sisters-in-law 
accordingly  set  to  work;  they  gave  parties  and  invited 
young  men.  The  beautiful  Swede,  who  sang  with  so 
much  feeling,  was  greatly  admired.  Several  suitors 
presented  themselves.  Maria  Anna  rejected  them  all. 
"  My  heart  is  broken,"  she  said  to  her  relations.  "  I 
cannot  love  any  one."  The  sisters-in-law  were  annoyed 
at  such  speeches,  which  seemed  to  them  absurd,  and 
they  tried  to  make  their  romantic  kinswoman  listen 
to  reason.  One  day,  when  they  were  urging  her  to 
accept  an  advantageous  offer,  Maria  Anna  lost  her 
temper  and  exclaimed  :  "  Really  your  protege  disgusts 
me  so,  that  if  I  were  absolutely  obliged  to  marry  some 
one,  I  would  rather  take  poor  old  Snitkin.  He  at  least 
is  sympathetic."     Maria  Anna  attached  no  importance 


130  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

to  these  imprudent  words.  Her  sisters-in-law  fastened 
upon  them  eagerly.  They  sent  devoted  friends  to  my 
grandfather,  who  spoke  to  him  eloquently  of  the  passion 
he  had  inspired  in  the  heart  of  Mile.  Miltopeus.  My 
grandfather  was  greatly  astonished.  He  certainly 
admired  the  fair  Swede,  and  listened  with  delight  to 
her  operatic  airs,  but  it  had  never  entered  his  head 
that  he  could  possibly  find  favour  with  a  beautiful  girl. 
Maria  Anna  took  no  notice  whatever  of  him ;  she  would 
smile  abstractedly  as  she  passed  him,  but  rarely  spoke 
to  him.  However,  if  she  really  loved  him  as  they  said, 
he  was  quite  ready  to  marry  her. 

Maria  Anna's  sisters-in-law  laid  my  grandfather's 
proposal  triumphantly  before  her.  The  poor  girl  was 
greatly  alarmed.  "  But  I  won't  marry  that  old  gentle- 
man," she  said.  "  I  mentioned  him  by  way  of  com- 
parison, to  make  you  realise  how  odious  the  other  suitor 
was  to  me."  This  explanation  came  too  late.  Maria 
Anna's  relatives  told  her  severely  that  a  well-brought-up 
girl  should  never  utter  imprudent  words;  that  it  was 
permissible  to  refuse  a  suitor  who  made  an  offer  without 
knowing  how  it  would  be  taken,  but  that  to  refuse  an 
offer  after  actually  inviting  it  was  to  insult  a  worthy 
man  who  by  no  means  deserved  such  treatment;  that 
Maria  Anna  was  twenty-seven  years  old,  that  her  brothers 
could  not  keep  her  indefinitely  with  them,  and  that  it 
was  time  to  think  seriously  of  her  future.  My  grand- 
mother saw  that  her  sisters-in-law  had  laid  a  trap  for 
her,  and  resigned  herself  to  the  inevitable.  Fortunately, 
"  poor  M.  Snitkin  "  was  not  antipathetic  to  her. 

The  marriage  of  these  two  dreamers  did  not  turn  out 
badly.  My  grandfather  never  forgot  the  famous  Asen- 
kova,  and  my  grandmother  cherished  the  memory  of 
her  fair-haired  lover  who  had  fallen  on  the  field  of  honour ; 
notwithstanding,  they  had  several  children.  Their 
characters   suited   each   other;     my   grandmother   was 


MY  MOTHER'S  FAMILY  131 

masterful,  her  husband  was  timid;  she  ordered,  he 
obeyed.  Nevertheless,  in  matters  he  considered  really 
important,  he  managed  to  enforce  his  will.  He  wished 
his  wife  to  change  her  religion,  for  he  thought  their 
children  could  not  be  brought  up  as  good  Christians 
if  their  parents  professed  different  creeds.  My  grand- 
mother became  Orthodox,  but  continued  to  read  the 
Gospel  in  Swedish.  Later,  when  the  children  began 
to  talk,  my  grandfather  forbade  his  wife  to  teach  them 
her  native  tongue.  "  It  is  unpleasant  to  me  to  hear 
you  talking  Swedish  together,  when  I  can't  understand 
it,"  he  said.  This  embargo  was  very  disagreeable 
to  my  grandmother,  who  could  never  learn  to  speak 
Russian  correctly.  All  her  life  she  expressed  herself 
in  a  picturesque  idiom  which  made  her  friends  smile. 
When  something  important  had  to  be  said,  she  preferred 
to  speak  German  to  her  children. 

After  their  marriage  my  grandparents  lived  at  first 
in  lodgings,  as  people  often  did  in  Petersburg.  But  this 
manner  of  life  did  not  please  my  grandmother,  who 
had  been  accustomed  to  a  more  spacious  existence  in 
Finland.  She  persuaded  her  husband  to  buy  a  piece 
of  land  which  was  for  sale  on  the  other  side  of  the  Neva, 
in  a  lonely  quarter  not  far  from  the  Smolny  monastery. 
There  she  had  a  large  house  built,  and  surrounded  it 
with  a  garden.  In  the  middle  of  Petersburg  she  lived 
as  if  she  were  in  the  country.  She  had  her  own  flowers, 
fruit  and  vegetables.  She  did  not  like  her  husband's 
Ukrainian  relatives,  and  received  them  only  on  family 
festivals.  On  the  other  hand,  all  the  Swedes  who  came 
to  Petersburg,  and  who  were  acquainted  with  one  or 
the  other  of  her  numerous  cousins  in  Finland,  came  to 
see  her,  lunched,  dined,  and  sometimes  stayed  the  night. 
The  house  was  large  and  contained  several  guest- 
chambers.  When  they  returned  to  Sweden,  my  grand- 
mother's  friends   invoked    her   good   offices   for   their 


132  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

children,  whom  they  had  placed  in  the  various  Crown 
establishments  :  sons  who  were  to  become  officers  in 
the  Russian  army.  On  the  festivals  of  Christmas  and 
Easter  the  house  and  garden  echoed  with  the  laughter 
and  the  Swedish  chatter  of  little  schoolgirls,  pupils 
of  the  Cadet  Schools,  and  shy  young  officers  who  could 
not  as  yet  speak  Russian  fluently  and  were  happy  to 
find  a  bit  of  Finland  in  the  strange  capital.  Like  all 
the  women  of  Germanic  origin,  my  grandmother  cared 
very  little  for  her  new  country,  and  thought  only  of 
the  interests  of  those  of  her  own  race. 

This  Finland  which  invaded  the  house  of  her  parents 
found  no  favour  with  my  mother.  The  Swedish  ladies, 
with  their  severe  profiles,  stiff,  ceremonious  manners 
and  unknown  language,  frightened  her.  The  little 
Anna  would  take  refuge  with  her  father,  whom  she 
resembled,  and  whose  favourite  she  was.  He  took  her 
to  church,  and  visited  the  religious  houses  of  Petersburg 
with  her.  Every  year  she  accompanied  him  on  a  pil- 
grimage to  the  famous  monastery  of  Valaam,  on  the 
islands  of  Lake  Ladoga.  My  mother  had  all  her  life 
tender  memories  of  this  kind,  simple,  sentimental  soul. 
She  became  religious  like  him,  and  remained  faithful 
to  the  Orthodox  Church.  The  new  religious  ideas,  which 
her  friends  eagerly  adopted,  gained  no  hold  over  her; 
my  mother  thought  more  highly  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
early  Fathers  than  of  the  fashionable  writers.  Like 
her  father,  she  loved  Russia  passionately,  and  could 
never  forgive  her  mother  the  indifference,  verging  on 
scorn,  displayed  by  her  towards  her  husband's  country. 
My  mother  considered  herself  a  thorough  Russian. 
And  yet  she  was  but  half  a  Slav ;  her  character  was  much 
more  Swedish.  The  dreamy  idleness  of  the  Russian 
woman  were  unknown  to  my  mother;  she  was  very 
active  all  her  life;  I  never  saw  her  sitting  with  folded 
hands.     She  was  always  taking  up  fresh  occupations, 


MY  MOTHER'S  FAMILY  133 

becoming  absorbed  in  them  and  generally  turning  them 
to  good  account.  She  had  nothing  of  the  large-minded- 
ness  of  Russian  women,  which  they  generally  increase 
by  wide  reading ;  but  she  had  the  practical  mind  which 
most  of  her  countrywomen  lack.  This  disposition  made 
a  great  impression  upon  her  women  friends;  later, 
during  her  widowhood,  they  habitually  consulted  her 
in  difficulties,  and  the  advice  she  gave  them  was  generally 
good.  Together  with  the  good  qualities  of  her  Swedish 
ancestors,  my  mother  had  inherited  some  of  their 
faults.  Her  self-esteem  was  always  excessive,  almost 
morbid;  a  trifle  would  offend  her,  and  she  easily  fell 
a  victim  to  those  who  flattered  her.  She  was  something 
of  a  mystic,  believed  in  dreams  and  presentiments,  and 
had  to  some  extent  the  curious  gift  of  second  sight 
possessed  by  many  Normans.  She  was  always  pre- 
dicting in  a  jesting  manner,  without  attaching  any  im- 
portance to  what  she  was  saying,  and  was  the  first  to  be 
astonished  and  almost  alarmed  when  her  predictions, 
often  of  a  fantastic  and  improbable  kind,  were  realised, 
as  if  by  magic.  This  second  sight  left  her  completely 
towards  her  fiftieth  year,  together  with  the  hysteria 
which  ravaged  her  girlhood.  Her  health  was  always 
poor;  she  was  anaemic,  nervous  and  restless,  and  often 
had  hysterical  attacks.  This  neuroticism  was  aggravated 
by  the  characteristic  indecision  of  the  Ukrainians, 
which  makes  them  hesitate  between  half  a  dozen 
possible  courses,  and  leads  them  to  transform  the  most 
trivial  circumstances  into  dramas,  and  sometimes  into 
melodramas. 


XIV 

MY   mother's    girlhood 

As  their  children  grew  up,  two  hostile  camps  were 
established  in  the  house  of  my  grandparents,  as  often 
happens  when  the  father  and  the  mother  are  of  different 
races.  The  Swedish  camp  was  composed  of  my  grand- 
mother and  her  elder  daughter,  Maria,  a  very  over- 
bearing young  person;  the  Ukrainian  camp  contained 
my  grandfather  and  his  favourite  child,  Anna.  The 
Swedes  commanded  and  the  Ukrainians  obeyed  grudg- 
ingly. My  uncle  Jean  served  as  a  link  between  the 
opponents.  He  had  inherited  the  Norman  beauty  of 
his  mother  with  the  Ukrainian  character  of  his  father, 
and  was  equally  beloved  by  both  parents. 

My  aunt  Maria  was  a  beautiful  creature,  tall  and 
slender,  with  blue  eyes  and  magnificent  golden  hair. 
She  had  a  great  success  in  society  and  innumerable 
suitors.  She  made  a  love-match  in  marrying  Professor 
Paul  Svatkovsky,  to  whom  the  Grand-Duchess  Maria 
had  confided  the  education  of  her  orphan  children,  the 
Dukes  of  Leuchtenberg.  At  the  time  of  my  aunt's 
marriage  the  young  princes  had  finished  their  studies, 
but  M.  Svatkovsky  continued  to  live  in  the  palace  of 
the  Grand  Duchess  as  a  friend.  My  aunt  made  her 
home  there;  she  had  aristocratic  friends,  beautiful 
dresses  and  fine  carriages.  When  she  visited  her 
relations,  her  tone  was  more  arrogant  than  ever.  She 
treated  her  younger  sister  as  a  little  schoolgirl,  which 
was,  perhaps,  not  to  be  wondered  at,  for  my  mother 
was  still  at  the  High  School,     Her  morbid  self-esteem 

134 


MY  MOTHER'S   GIRLHOOD  135 

was  wounded  by  the  authoritative  tone  of  her  elder 
sister.    She  was  proud,  and  resented  patronage,  dreaming 
of    independence.     A    great    wave    of    Hberahsm    was 
passing  over  Russia  at  the  time.     Young  Russian  girls, 
who  had   hitherto  been  brought  up  more  or  less   on 
French  lines,  now  refused  to  accept  the  husbands  their 
parents  chose  for  them,  and  to  go  into  society.     Their 
mothers  had  danced  to  excess;    the  daughters  despised 
balls,    and    preferred    literary    gatherings    or    scientific 
lectures.     They   laughed   at   novels    and    were    full    of 
enthusiasm  for  the   works   of  Darwin.     They  became 
careless  in  their  dress,  cut  their  hair  short  to  save  time, 
put  on  spectacles,  and  wore  black  dresses  and  men's 
blouses.     It  was  their  dream  to  go  and  study  at  the 
University.     When  parents  opposed  this  wish,  they  ran 
away  with  idealistic   students,   who  married  them  in 
order  to   save  them  from   "  the   odious   despotism   of 
parents."     These    marriages    were    generally    platonic; 
the  couple  lived  apart  and  rarely  met.     But  by  way  of 
compensation,   the  young  wife   would   choose   a   lover 
among  the  students  of  the  University  and  live  with 
him  in  "  civil  marriage."     Free  love  seemed  the  ideal 
love  to  these  reckless  young  creatures.     Some  of  them 
even   went   farther.     Male   and   female   students   sub- 
scribed to  hire  large  dwellings  and  found  communes  in 
which  all  the  women  belonged  indiscriminately  to  all 
the   men.     They   were   very   proud    of  this   grotesque 
institution,  which  they  ingenuously  assumed  to  be  the 
last  word  in  human  civilisation.     They  were  not  aware 
that  they  were,  in  fact,  retrograding  to  the  condition 
of  those  antediluvian  tribes  among  whom  marriage  was 
unknown. 

Brought  up  as  she  had  been,  my  mother  could  not, 
of  course,  participate  in  these  follies.  An  obedient 
daughter  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  she  looked  upon  free 
love  as  a  mortal  sin.     Short  hair  and  spectacles  seemed 


136  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

to  her  very  ugly.  She  loved  pretty  clothes  and  graceful 
coiffures.  She  tried  to  read  Darwin,  but  found  him 
very  wearisome;  the  idea  of  simian  descent  did  not 
attract  her.  Her  young  imagination  was  fired  only  by 
the  poems  and  novels  of  the  Russian  authors.  She  had 
no  desire  to  be  carried  off  by  a  student;  she  preferred 
to  quit  her  parental  home  on  her  husband's  arm,  with 
the  blessing  of  her  father  and  mother.  In  all  the  new 
movement  towards  liberty,  my  mother  chose  only  what 
was  really  good  in  it — work,  and  the  independence  it 
offers  to  all  who  take  to  it  seriously.  She  studied 
diligently  at  school,  and  on  leaving  received  a  silver 
medal  of  which  she  was  very  proud.  For  a  time  she 
followed  a  course  of  higher  studies,  organised  by  the 
parents  of  her  school-friends.  The  behaviour  of  the 
girl-students  at  the  University  was  becoming  so  scan- 
dalous that  many  parents  in  alarm  subscribed  to  form 
private  classes,  at  which  the  professors  gave  lessons  to 
their  daughters,  thus  inducing  them  to  continue  their 
studies,  while  saving  them  from  contamination.  My 
grandmother  was  one  of  the  subscribers;  but  higher 
studies  had  no  attraction  for  my  mother.  She  cared 
nothing  for  science,  and  did  not  see  how  it  was  to 
benefit  her.  Young  Russians  incline  to  vagueness  in 
their  aspirations  :  they  study  to  develop  their  minds, 
to  understand  life  better,  to  appreciate  literature  more 
fully.  These  abstract  aims  did  not  appeal  to  my 
mother's  practical  mind.  What  she  wanted  was  to 
learn  some  craft  by  which  she  could  earn  money  to 
buy  books  and  theatre  tickets,  and  later  to  travel. 
My  grandmother,  who  controlled  the  purse-strings,  was 
not  fond  of  spending  money  on  what  she  considered 
unnecessary  things;  my  mother,  for  her  part,  disliked 
having  to  ask  for  every  cent;  she  preferred  to  earn  for 
herself.  She  saw  in  the  papers  M.  Ohlin's  advertisement, 
in  which  he  promised  those  who  made  good  progress  in 


MY   MOTHER'S   GIRLHOOD  137 

Iiis  courses  of  stenography  posts  in  the  law-courts,  at 
the  meetings  of  learned  societies,  at  congresses,  and,  in 
short,  everywhere  where  rapid  reporting  was  a  de- 
sideratum. The  idea  pleased  my  mother.  She  joined 
the  new  classes  and  worked  industriously.  This  purely 
mechanical  science  would  have  been  distasteful  to  a 
girl  of  lively  imagination ;  my  mother,  who  had  singu- 
larly little,  found  it  very  interesting.  At  this  time  her 
father  was  seriously  ill,  and  had  been  in  bed  for  some 
months.  When  she  came  back  from  her  lessons,  she 
would  go  at  once  to  see  him.  He  would  lie  propped 
up  on  pillows,  turning  over  her  notebooks  with  trembling 
fingers,  and  asking  her  the  meaning  of  all  the  mysterious 
signs.  The  poor  invalid  was  delighted  that  his  favourite 
had  at  last  found  a  congenial  occupation.  He  died  a 
few  weeks  later ;  my  mother  mourned  him  passionately, 
and  devoted  herself  more  than  ever  to  her  stenography 
to  divert  her  thoughts  from  her  sorrow.  The  interest 
her  father  had  shown  in  her  studies  was  a  further 
incentive.  When  the  holidays  came  and  the  classes 
ceased,  my  mother  was  afraid  she  might  forget  her 
stenography  during  the  summer.  She  therefore  pro- 
posed to  M.  Ohlin  that  she  should  make  transcriptions 
from  books  and  send  them  to  him  to  correct.  Ohlin, 
who  had  already  begun  to  distinguish  her  from  the 
other  students,  consented  willingly.  My  mother  worked 
a  great  deal  throughout  the  summer,  and  in  the  autumn 
was  at  the  top  of  her  class.  Thus  she  was  the  only 
stenographer  Ohlin  could  recommend  to  Dostoyevsky. 
He  rightly  feared  the  opposition  of  my  grandmother, 
who,  like  all  the  Swedes  of  her  day,  was  a  strict  upholder 
of  the  proprieties.  However,  my  father's  literary  fame 
saved  the  situation. 

Dostoyevsky,  as  it  happened,  was  the  favourite 
author  of  my  grandfather,  who  had  become  one  of  his 
devotees  on  the  appearance  of  his  first  novel,  and  had 


138  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

followed  his  literary  career  with  great  interest.  When 
Dostoyevsky  was  condemned  to  penal  servitude,  my 
grandfather  thought  he  had  disappeared  for  ever.  He 
remained  faithful  to  his  memory  and  often  spoke  of 
him  to  his  children.  "  The  modern  authors  are  worth- 
less," he  would  say.  "  In  my  young  days  they  were 
much  more  serious.  Young  Dostoyevsky,  for  instance  ! 
What  a  magnificent  talent,  what  a  sublime  soul  he  had  ! 
What  a  pity  that  his  literary  career  was  cut  short  so 
soon  !  "  When  Dostoyevsky  began  to  write  again,  my 
grandfather's  admiration  revived.  He  subscribed  to  all 
the  periodicals  in  which  my  father's  works  appeared, 
and  read  them  with  enthusiasm.  His  children,  who 
had  been  infants  at  the  time  of  Dostoyevsky's  first 
works,  now  shared  their  father's  admiration.  The 
Insulted  and  Injured  made  a  deep  impression  on  their 
young  imaginations.  When  the  new  number  of  the 
periodical  was  due,  all  the  family  watched  feverishly 
for  the  arrival  of  the  postman.  My  grandfather  seized 
the  review  first  of  all,  and  carried  it  off  to  read  it  in 
his  study.  If  he  laid  it  down,  my  mother  would  creep 
in,  and  hiding  it  under  her  schoolgirl  apron,  would  run 
off  to  read  it  in  the  garden,  under  the  shade  of  her 
favourite  tree.  My  aunt  Maria,  who  was  not  yet  married 
at  the  time,  sometimes  caught  her  sister  in  the  act, 
and  would  take  the  book  from  her,  invoking  her  rights 
as  the  elder  of  the  two.  The  whole  of  my  grandfather's 
family  fought  over  The  Insulted  and  Injured,  weeping 
at  the  sorrows  of  Natalia  and  little  Nelly,  and  following 
the  evolution  of  the  drama  with  anguish.  My  grand- 
mother alone  showed  no  interest.  She  disliked  novels 
and  never  read  them;  politics  absorbed  her  entirely. 
I  remember  her  later,  when  she  was  seventy  years  old, 
reading  the  newspaper  through  her  spectacles.  She 
followed  the  course  of  political  events  throughout 
Europe  and  talked  of  them  continually.     The  marriage 


MY  MOTHER'S   GIRLHOOD  139 

of  Prince  Ferdinand  of  Coburg  occupied  her  thoughts 
a  good  deal.  Would  Princess  Clementine  find  a 
good  match  for  him  among  the  princesses  of  Europe? 
This  grave  question  disturbed  my  poor  grandmother 
greatly.  .  .  . 

My  grandfather  had  always  talked  of  Dostoyevsky 
as  the  writer  of  his  youth,  and  my  grandmother  was 
convinced  that  his  favourite  author  was  a  very  old 
gentleman.  When  Ohlin  proposed  to  my  mother  that 
she  should  work  for  Dostoyevsky,  she  was  much  flat- 
tered and  agreed  joyfully.  My  grandmother,  looking 
upon  the  novelist  as  a  distinguished  old  man,  raised  no 
objections.  The  day  when  the  work  was  to  begin,  my 
mother  dressed  her  hair  demurely,  and  for  the  first 
time  regretted  that  she  had  no  spectacles  to  put  on 
her  nose.  On  her  way  to  her  employer's  house,  she 
tried  to  imagine  what  this  first  session  would  be  like. 
"  We  shall  work  for  an  hour,"  she  thought,  "  and  then 
we  shall  talk  of  literature.  I  will  tell  him  how  I  admire 
his  genius,  and  which  are  my  favourite  heroines.  I 
must  not  forget  to  ask  him  why  Natalia  does  not  marry 
Vania,  who  loved  her  so  deeply.  .  .  .  Perhaps  it  would 
be  well  to  criticise  some  of  the  scenes,  so  as  to  show 
Dostoyevsky  that  I  am  not  a  little  goose,  and  that  I 
know  something  about  literature.  ..."  Unhappily,  the 
event  dispelled  all  my  mother's  artless  day-dreams. 
Dostoyevsky  had  had  an  epileptic  attack  the  night 
before ;  he  was  absent-minded,  nervous  and  peremptory. 
He  seemed  quite  unconscious  of  the  charms  of  his 
young  stenographer,  and  treated  her  as  a  kind  of 
Remington  typewriter.  He  dictated  the  first  chapter 
of  the  novel  in  a  harsh  voice,  complained  that  she  did 
not  write  fast  enough,  made  her  read  aloud  what  he 
had  dictated,  scolded  her,  and  declared  she  had  not 
understood  him.  Feeling  tired  after  his  attack,  he  sent 
her  away  unceremoniously,  telling  her  to  come  back 


140  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

the  next  day  at  the  same  hour.  My  mother  was  much 
hurt;  she  had  been  accustomed  to  very  different 
treatment  from  men.  Without  being  pretty,  she  was 
fresh,  gay  and  amiable,  and  very  attractive  to  the 
young  men  who  frequented  my  grandmother's  house. 
At  nineteen  she  was,  indeed,  still  a  child.  She  did  not 
reahse  that  a  woman  who  works  for  money  will  never 
be  treated  in  the  same  manner  as  an  ingenue  flirting  with 
the  guests  in  her  mother's  drawing-room.  She  went 
home  in  a  rage,  and  resolved  that  evening  to  write  a 
letter  to  Dostoyevsky  next  day,  explaining  that  her 
delicate  health  would  prevent  her  from  continuing  her 
stenographic  work.  After  sleeping  on  the  matter,  she 
came  to  the  conclusion,  however,  that  when  one  has 
begun  a  task  one  ought  to  finish  it;  that  her  teacher 
might  be  annoyed  if  for  mere  caprice  she  refused  the 
first  post  he  had  found  her,  and  might  not  recommend 
her  again;  that  The  Gambler  had  to  be  finished  by  the 
1st  of  November,  and  that  after  this  she  would  be 
under  no  obligation  to  continue  working  for  the  captious 
author.  She  got  up,  carefully  copied  what  Dostoyevsky 
had  dictated  on  the  preceding  day,  and  presented  herself 
at  his  house  at  the  appointed  hour.  She  would  have 
been  very  much  alarmed  if  any  one  had  predicted  on 
that  day  that  she  would  transcribe  Dostoyevsky's 
novels  for  fourteen  years. 


XV 

THE  BETROTHAL 

My  mother  owned  one  of  those  albums  with  pink, 
blue  and  green  pages  to  which  young  girls  confide  the 
great  events  of  their  days  each  evening.  My  mother 
opened  hers  the  more  readily  because  she  could  record 
her  impressions  in  shorthand,  and  thus  write  a  good 
deal  in  a  limited  time.  She  kept  this  artless  journal 
of  her  youth,  and  this  enabled  her  later  to  recall  the 
story  of  her  betrothal  and  of  her  honeymoon  almost 
day  by  day.  These  interesting  souvenirs  of  hers  were 
about  to  be  published  when  the  great  war  broke  out, 
and  it  was  necessary  to  put  off  their  appearance  to  a 
more  propitious  season.  I  will  not  deprive  my  mother 
of  the  pleasure  of  describing  this  important  period  of 
her  existence.  I  will  content  myself  with  tracing  this 
phase  of  Dostoyevsky's  life  in  broad  outlines,  and 
painting  the  romance  of  my  parents  from  my  own 
point  of  view,  and  from  my  own  estimate  of  their 
characters. 

Having  recovered  from  the  first  wound  to  her  vanity, 
my  mother  set  to  work  valiantly,  and  went  every  day 
to  take  down  The  Gambler  from  my  father's  dictation. 
Dostoyevsky  gradually  became  conscious  that  his 
Remington  machine  was  a  charming  young  girl,  and 
an  ardent  admirer  of  his  genius.  The  emotion  with 
which  she  spoke  of  his  heroes  and  heroines  pleased  the 
novelist.  He  found  his  young  stenographer  very 
sympathetic,  and  got  into  the  habit  of  confiding  his 
troubles  to  her,  telling  her  of  the  manner  in  which  his 

141 


142  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

brother's  creditors  were  harassing  him,  and  of  the 
complicated  affairs  of  his  large  family.  My  mother 
listened  in  surprise  and  consternation.  Her  girlish 
imagination  had  pictured  the  distinguished  writer 
surrounded  by  admirers  who  formed  a  kind  of  body- 
guard about  him,  preserving  him  from  all  dangers  that 
might  threaten  his  health  or  interfere  with  the  creation 
of  his  masterpieces.  In  the  place  of  this  agreeable 
picture  she  saw  a  sick  man,  weary,  badly  fed,  badly 
lodged,  badly  served,  hunted  down  like  a  wild  beast 
by  merciless  creditors,  and  ruthlessly  exploited  by 
selfish  relatives.  The  great  writer  had  only  a  few 
friends,  who  were  content  to  give  him  their  advice,  but 
who  never  took  the  trouble  to  inform  the  Russian 
public  or  the  Russian  Government  of  the  terrible  straits 
to  which  this  man  of  genius  was  reduced,  and  of  the 
abyss  which  threatened  to  engulf  his  splendid  talents. 
My  mother's  generous  spirit  was  filled  with  indignation 
when  she  realised  the  neglect  and  indifference  surround- 
ing the  great  Russian.  She  conceived  the  idea  of 
protecting  Dostoyevsky,  of  sharing  the  heavy  burden 
he  had  taken  upon  his  shoulders,  saving  him  from  his 
rapacious  relatives,  helping  him  in  his  work,  and 
comforting  him  in  his  sorrows.  She  was  not,  indeed, 
in  love  with  this  man,  who  was  more  than  twenty-five 
years  her  senior.  But  she  understood  Dostoyevsky's 
beautiful  soul  as  quickly  as  her  father  had  formerly 
understood  the  pure  soul  of  Asenkova,  and  reverenced 
his  genius  as  her  father  had  reverenced  that  of  the 
young  tragedienne.  Just  as  my  grandfather  had  con- 
sidered Asenkova  the  greatest  artist  of  our  century,  so 
my  mother  would  never  admit  that  there  was  any 
novelist  equal  to  Dostoyevsky,  not  only  in  Russia,  but 
in  the  whole  world.  In  these  two  devotions,  which  were 
so  closely  akin,  there  was  something  of  the  Greek  love 
of  art,  a  rare  sentiment  in  Russia,  and  one  which  the 


THE   BETROTHAL  143 

Ukrainians  perhaps  inherited  from  Greek  colonists  on 
the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea.  But  my  mother  was  only 
half  an  Ukrainian;  she  had  also  the  Russian  sense  of 
pity,  and  she  felt  this  holy  pity  of  our  race  for  this  man 
of  genius  who  was  so  kindly,  so  confiding,  who  never 
thought  of  self,  and  was  so  ready  to  give  all  he  had 
to  others.  Young  and  strong,  she  desired  to  protect 
the  famous  writer,  who  was  approaching  his  decline. 
His  debts  and  his  numerous  obligations  might  have 
frightened  a  timid  spirit.  But  my  mother's  Norman 
blood  braced  her  for  conflict;  she  was  ready  to  do 
battle  with  her  whole  world. 

A  Russian  girl  in  my  mother's  position  would  have 
lost  herself  in  the  clouds,  and  would  have  passed  her 
time  dreaming  of  all  the  heroic  circumstances  in  which 
she  could  give  her  life  to  Dostoyevsky.  My  mother, 
instead  of  dreaming,  set  to  work  energetically,  and 
began  by  saving  him  from  the  clutches  of  his  publisher. 
She  begged  Dostoyevsky  to  prolong  their  hours  of 
dictation,  spent  the  night  copying  out  what  she  had 
taken  down  in  the  day,  and  worked  with  such  goodwill 
that  The  Gambler  was  ready  on  the  date  fixed  by  Stel- 
lowsky,  who  was  much  chagrined  to  see  that  his  prey 
had  escaped  from  the  trap  he  had  prepared.  Dos- 
toyevsky was  fully  sensible  that  he  could  not  have 
written  his  novel  so  quickly  but  for  my  mother's  help, 
and  he  was  deeply  grateful  to  her  for  the  passionate 
interest  she  showed  in  his  affairs.  He  could  not  bear 
the  thought  of  parting  with  her,  and  proposed  that  they 
should  work  together  at  the  last  chapters  of  Crime  and 
Punishment,  which  were  not  yet  written.  My  mother 
agreed  willingly.  To  celebrate  the  happy  conclusion 
of  their  first  undertaking,  she  invited  my  father  to  come 
to  tea,  and  presented  him  to  her  mother.  My  grand- 
mother, who  read  her  daughter's  heart  like  an  open 
book,    and    had    long   foreseen    how   her   stenographic 


144  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

activities  would  end,  received  Dostoyevsky  as  a  future 
son-in-law  is  received.  That  corner  of  Sweden  trans- 
ported to  Russia  attracted  my  father;  it  must  have 
reminded  him  of  the  Lithuanian  corner  transported  by 
his  father  to  Moscow  in  which  he  had  spent  his  child- 
hood. Dostoyevsky  saw  in  what  an  austere  atmosphere 
his  little  stenographer  had  been  reared,  and  how  greatly 
she  differed  from  the  young  girls  of  the  day,  who  were 
leading  the  lives  of  prostitutes  under  the  pretext  of 
liberty.  He  began  to  think  of  marrying  his  young 
assistant,  although  he,  again,  was  no  more  in  love  than 
was  my  mother.  Like  many  Northerners,  he  had  a 
somewhat  cold  temperament;  it  required  the  African 
devices  of  Maria  Dmitrievna  or  the  effrontery  of  Pauline 
to  kindle  passion  in  him.  A  well-brought-up  young  girl 
who  never  overstepped  the  limits  of  an  innocent 
coquetry  did  not,  of  course,  stir  his  senses.  But  he 
thought  that  this  severely  nurtured  girl  would  be  an 
excellent  mother  of  a  family,  and  it  was  this  he  had 
long  been  seeking.  And  yet  he  hesitated  to  make  his 
proposal.  The  fact  was  that  my  mother  seemed  very 
childish  to  my  father.  She  was  about  the  same  age  as 
Anna  Kronkovsky,  but  she  was  much  less  mature  and 
self-confident  than  the  young  anarchist.  Mile.  Korvin- 
Kronkovsky's  political,  moral  and  religious  ideas  were 
all  clearly  defined.  She  was  a  severe  critic  of  a  world 
God  had  conceived  so  badly  and  executed  so  defectively, 
and  was  quite  ready  to  correct  the  mistakes  of  the 
Creator.  My  mother  bowed  in  reverence  to  God's  will, 
and  had  no  fault  to  find  with  His  works.  Her  ideas 
of  life  were  still  very  vague ;  she  acted  rather  by  instinct 
than  by  reflection.  When  she  was  talking  to  Dostoyev- 
sky, she  laughed  and  jested  like  the  child  she  was. 
My  father  smiled  as  he  listened  to  her,  and  thought  to 
himself  in  alarm  :  "  What  should  I  do  with  such  a 
baby  to  look  after  ?  "     This  young  girl,  who  only  a  year 


THE  BETROTHAL  145 

ago  was  still  wearing  a  schoolgirl's  apron,  did  not  seem 
to  him  mature  enough  for  marriage.  It  is  probable 
that  Dostoyevsky  would  have  hesitated  long,  if  a 
prophetic  dream  had  not  hastened  his  decision.  He 
dreamed  that  he  had  lost  some  valuable  object;  he 
was  seeking  for  it  everywhere,  turning  out  cupboards, 
impatiently  throwing  aside  useless  things,  which  were 
strewn  on  the  floor  of  his  room.  All  of  a  sudden  he 
saw  in  the  bottom  of  a  drawer  a  very  small  diamond, 
which  sparkled  so  brilliantly  that  it  lighted  up  the 
whole  room.  He  stared  at  it  in  amazement :  how 
could  the  gem  have  got  into  that  drawer?  Who  had 
put  it  there  ?  Suddenly,  as  often  happens  in  dreams, 
my  father  understood  that  the  little  diamond  which 
shone  with  such  lustre  was  his  little  stenographer.  He 
woke  up  very  happy  and  deeply  moved.  "  I  will  ask  her 
in  marriage  to-day,"  he  said.  He  never  regretted  his 
decision.  .  .  . 

After  his  betrothal  to  my  mother,  Dostoyevsky  went 
to  see  her  every  day,  but  did  not  hasten  to  announce 
his  approaching  marriage  to  his  relatives.  He  knew 
too  well  how  they  would  receive  the  news.  His  stepson 
was  the  first  to  discover  the  secret.  He  was  filled  with 
consternation  at  the  "  treachery  "  of  his  stepfather  ! 
The  idle  rascal  had  arranged  his  life  so  satisfactorily  ! 
His  stepfather  would  work  and  he  would  amuse  himself; 
later  he  would  inherit  Dostoyevsky's  works  and  would 
live  on  the  income  they  yielded.  And  now  a  young  girl, 
whom  his  stepfather  hardly  knew,  had  upset  all  these 
agreeable  plans !  Paul  Issaieff  was  most  indignant. 
He  put  on  spectacles,  as  he  always  did  when  he  wanted 
to  look  important,  and  told  his  stepfather  that  he 
wished  to  speak  to  him  seriously.  He  warned  him 
against  the  disastrous  passions  of  old  men,^  pointed 
out  all  the  unhappiness  this  marriage  with  a  young  girl 
^  My  father  was  then  forty-five. 


146  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

would  bring  upon  him,  and  admonished  him  severely 
as  to  the  duties  of  a  stepfather.  "  I,  too,  am  thinking 
of  marrying  some  day,"  he  said ;  "I  shall  probably 
have  children;  it  will  be  your  duty  to  work  for  them." 
My  father  was  enraged,  and  turned  the  idiot  out  of  the 
house.  This  was  the  usual  ending  to  discussions 
between  the  stepfather  and  the  stepson. 

Paul  Issaieff  hastened  to  warn  the  family  of  the 
danger  which  threatened  their  parasitical  security. 
Dostoyevsky's  nephews  and  nieces  were  greatly  alarmed ; 
they,  too,  had  counted  on  living  all  their  lives  at  their 
uncle's  expense;  they,  too,  had  looked  forward  to 
becoming  his  heirs.  Dostoyevsky's  sister-in-law,  in  her 
turn,  wished  to  talk  to  him  seriously.  "  Why  do  you 
want  to  marry  again  ?  "  she  asked.  "  You  had  no 
children  by  your  first  marriage,  when  you  were  a  young 
man.  How  can  you  hope  to  have  any  at  your  present 
age  ?  "  This  marriage  with  a  young  girl  of  nineteen 
seemed  an  absurdity,  almost  a  vice,  to  my  father's 
relatives.  His  literary  friends  were  also  somewhat 
surprised.  They  could  not  understand  why  Dostoyevsky, 
who,  at  the  age  of  thirty-three,  had  married  a  woman 
of  his  own  age,  or  perhaps  older,  now,  when  he  was 
past  forty,  cared  only  for  quite  young  girls.  Anna 
Kronkovsky  and  my  mother  were  about  the  same  age 
when  he  asked  them  in  marriage.  I  think  this  pecu- 
liarity may  be  explained  by  the  treachery  of  Maria 
Dmitrievna,  which  produced  a  profound  and  ineradicable 
impression  on  my  father's  mind,  and  made  him  distrust 
all  women  of  mature  age.  He  could  now  only  believe 
in  the  innocence  of  a  young  heart  and  a  pure  spirit, 
which  a  man  of  character  would  always  be  able  to 
mould  as  he  wished. ^     Dostoyevsky,  after  marrying  my 

^  The  Eternal  Husband,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  also 
attracted  only  by  young  girls  after  the  death  of  his  unfaithful 
wife. 


THE   BETROTHAL  147 

mother,  carried  on  her  moral  education  very  carefully. 
He  superintended  her  reading,  keeping  erotic  books 
from  her,  took  her  to  the  museums,  showed  her  beautiful 
pictures  and  statues,  and  tried  to  kindle  in  her  young 
soul  the  love  of  all  that  is  great,  pure  and  noble. 

He  was  rewarded  by  the  absolute  fidelity  of  his  wife, 
both  during  his  life  and  after  his  death. 

Like  most  Lithuanians,  Dostoyevsky  was  pure  and 
chaste.  "  The  Lithuanian  despises  indecency  and  de- 
bauchery," says  Vidunas.  "  There  is  no  obscenity  in 
his  folk-songs,  and  in  Lithuania  one  does  not  find  on 
walls  and  fences  those  pornographic  scrawls  so  common 
in  other  countries."  When  he  visited  Paris,  Dos- 
toyevsky frequented  the  cafes,  and  went  to  see  the 
dancing  in  the  casinos  of  the  Champs  ^^lysees.  The 
gross  songs  he  heard  and  the  erotic  dances  he  witnessed 
filled  him  with  indignation;  he  spoke  of  them  with 
disgust  to  his  Russian  friends.  This  was,  perhaps,  the 
reason  why  my  father,  when  he  took  his  young  wife  to 
Germany,  Switzerland,  Italy  and  Austria,  did  not  visit 
France  with  her.  Nevertheless,  the  disgust  which 
Dostoyevsky  had  felt  when  studying  Parisian  life  did 
not  affect  his  admiration  for  French  literature.  He 
was  one  of  the  rare  travellers  who  distinguish  between 
the  France  that  works  and  the  France  that  amuses 
itself. 


XVI 

dostoyevsky's  second  marriage 

In  spite  of  the  opposition  of  his  relations,  Dostoyevsky 
married  my  mother  on  February  12th  of  that  winter, 
five  months  after  their  first  meeting.  As  he  had  no 
money,  he  could  not  take  his  young  wife  on  a  honey- 
moon journey.  The  couple  took  up  their  quarters  in  a 
lodging  which  my  grandmother  had  furnished  for  them. 
Their  decision  to  spend  their  honeymoon  in  Petersburg 
was  very  imprudent,  and  nearly  brought  about  the 
wreck  of  their  happiness. 

Having  failed  to  prevent  the  marriage,  Dostoyevsky's 
relations  conceived  the  idea  of  estranging  the  husband 
and  wife.  They  changed  their  tactics ;  the  enemies  of  my 
mother  became  her  friends,  and  feigned  an  unbounded 
admiration  for  her.  They  invaded  her  home,  and  rarely 
left  her  alone  with  her  husband.  These  people  who  had 
hitherto  neglected  my  father,  and  had  visited  him  but 
rarely,  now  spent  the  entire  day  with  the  newly  married 
couple,  lunching  and  dining  at  their  table,  and  often 
staying  till  midnight.  My  mother  was  greatly  surprised 
at  this  behaviour,  but  she  did  not  venture  to  complain ; 
she  had  been  taught  from  childhood  to  be  amiable  and 
polite  to  all  her  mother's  guests,  even  to  those  she 
disliked.  The  artful  relatives  took  advantage  of  her 
youthful  timidity ;  they  overran  her  home  and  behaved 
as  if  it  belonged  to  them.  Pretending  to  give  her  good 
advice,  they  begged  her  not  to  disturb  her  husband  too 
often,  but  to  leave  him  in  peace  in  his  study.  "  You 
are  too  young  for  him  at  present,"  said  these  perfidious 
counsellors ;     "  your  girlish  talk   cannot  interest   him. 

148 


DOSTOYEVSKY'S  SECOND  MARRIAGE     149 

Your  husband  is  a  very  serious  man,  he  wants  to  think 
over  his  books  a  great  deal."  On  the  other  hand,  they 
would  take  my  father  aside  and  tell  him  that  he  was 
much  too  old  for  his  young  wife  and  that  he  bored  her. 
"  Listen  how  prettily  she  chatters  and  laughs  with  her 
young  nephews  and  nieces,"  his  sister-in-law  would 
whisper.  "  Your  wife  needs  the  society  of  young 
people  of  her  own  age.  Let  her  amuse  herself  with  them, 
or  she  will  begin  to  dislike  you."  My  father  was  hurt 
when  he  was  assured  that  he  was  too  old  for  his  wife; 
my  mother  was  indignant  at  the  thought  that  the  great 
man  she  had  married  considered  her  silly  and  tiresome. 
They  sulked,  too  proud  to  speak  frankly  to  each  other 
of  their  grievances.  If  my  parents  had  been  in  love 
they  would  have  ended  by  quarrelling  and  reproaching 
each  other,  and  would  thus  have  exposed  the  machina- 
tions of  the  mischief-makers ;  but  they  had  married  on 
the  strength  of  a  mutual  sympathy.  This  sympathy 
was  capable  of  becoming  ardent  love  under  favourable 
circumstances;  but  it  was  also  capable  of  turning  to 
profound  aversion.  My  mother  saw  with  alarm  how 
rapidly  the  admiration  she  had  felt  for  Dostoyevsky 
before  their  marriage  was  diminishing.  She  began  to 
think  him  very  weak,  very  simple  and  very  blind.  "  It 
is  his  duty  as  a  husband  to  protect  me  from  all  these 
schemers,  and  to  turn  them  out  of  the  house,"  thought 
the  poor  bride.  "  Instead  of  defending  me,  he  allows 
his  relations  to  lord  it  over  me  in  my  own  house,  to  eat 
my  dinners  and  to  make  fun  of  my  inexperience  as  a 
housekeeper."  While  my  mother  was  crying  in  her 
bedroom,  her  husband  was  sitting  alone  in  his  study, 
and  instead  of  working,  was  thinking  sadly  that  his 
hopes  of  a  happy  married  life  were  not  very  likely  to  be 
realised.  "  Can  she  not  understand  what  a  difference 
there  is  between  me  and  my  foolish  nephews  ?  "  he 
would   say   to   himself   in   mute   rebuke   of   his   wife's 


150  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

supposed  levity.  His  relations  were  delighted.  Every- 
thing was  going  on  as  they  wished.  .  .  . 

The  spring  was  approaching,  and  people  began  to 
make  plans  for  the  summer  exodus.  My  father's  sister- 
in-law  proposed  that  they  should  take  a  large  villa  at 
Pavlovsk,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Petersburg.  "  We 
could  all  be  together,"  she  said  to  Dostoyevsky,  "and 
we  should  have  a  delightful  summer.  We  will  make 
excursions  and  take  your  wife  out  with  us  all  day. 
You  can  stay  at  home  and  work  at  your  novel  without 
any  interruptions."  These  plans  were  not  very  attrac- 
tive to  my  father,  and  still  less  so  to  his  wife.  She 
told  her  husband  that  she  would  prefer  to  go  abroad; 
she  had  long  wished  to  visit  Germany  and  Switzerland. 
My  father,  too,  was  eager  to  see  once  more  the  Europe 
he  remembered  with  so  much  pleasure.  He  had  already 
made  three  visits  to  foreign  countries,  the  third  mainly 
for  the  purpose  of  playing  roulette.  He  thought  he 
was  now  cured  of  the  fatal  passion,  but  he  was  mistaken. 
During  his  travels  in  Europe  with  my  mother,  he  had 
several  fresh  attacks  of  the  malady.  It  gradually  weak- 
ened, however,  and  completely  lost  its  hold  upon  him 
when  he  was  approaching  his  fiftieth  year.  Like  his 
passion  for  women,  his  passion  for  roulette  lasted  alto- 
gether only  ten  years. 

My  father  began  to  look  about  for  money  for  the 
projected  journey.  He  would  not  apply  to  his  aunt 
Kumanin,  for  only  a  few  months  before  she  had  given 
him  ten  thousand  roubles,  which  were  spent  in  publish- 
ing the  newspaper  Epoha.  He  preferred  to  go  to  M. 
Katkov,  the  publisher  of  an  important  Moscow  review, 
in  which  Dostoyevsky's  novels  now  appeared.  My 
father  went  to  see  him  at  Moscow,  described  the  plan 
of  the  new  novel  he  was  about  to  begin,  and  asked  for  an 
advance  of  a  few  thousand  roubles.  Katkov,  who 
looked  upon  Dostoyevsky  as  the  great  attraction  of  his 


DOSTOYEVSKY'S  SECOND  MARRIAGE     151 

review,  readily  complied  with  his  request.  My  father 
then  announced  to  his  family  that  he  was  shortly  going 
abroad  with  his  young  wife.  The  schemers  clamoured 
that  if  he  intended  to  desert  them  for  three  months,  he 
must  at  least  leave  them  some  money.  Each  produced 
a  list  of  things  required,  and  when  my  father  had 
satisfied  them  all  he  had  so  little  money  left  that  he 
was  obliged  to  give  up  the  projected  journey. 

My  mother  was  in  despair.  "  They  will  make  mischief 
between  me  and  my  husband  this  summer  !  "  she  cried, 
with  tears,  to  her  mother.  "  I  feel  it,  I  can  see  through 
all  their  schemes."  My  grandmother  was  much  troubled ; 
her  younger  daughter's  marriage  did  not  promise  well. 
She,  too,  feared  a  sojourn  at  Pavlovsk,  and  wanted  her 
daughter  to  go  abroad.  Unfortunately,  she  was  unable 
to  advance  the  funds  for  the  journey;  the  money  my 
grandfather  had  left  her  had  been  invested  in  the  build- 
ing of  two  houses  close  to  her  own,  which  she  let.  She 
lived  on  the  income  from  these  houses.  She  had  been 
obliged  to  mortgage  a  part  of  her  income  in  order  to  give 
her  daughter  a  trousseau  and  to  furnish  her  new  home. 
It  was  therefore  very  difficult  for  her  to  find  a  consider- 
able sum  of  money  immediately.  After  careful  con- 
sideration, my  grandmother  advised  her  daughter  to 
pledge  her  furniture.  "  In  the  autumn,  when  you  come 
back  to  Petersburg,  I  shall  be  able  to  find  the  money  to 
redeem  it,"  she  said.  "  Just  now  the  essential  thing  is 
to  get  away  as  soon  as  possible,  and  to  remove  your 
husband  from  the  fatal  influence  of  all  those  schemers." 

Every  bride  is  proud  of  her  trousseau.  She  loves  her 
pretty  furniture,  her  silver,  her  dainty  china  and  glass, 
even  the  resplendent  pots  and  pans  in  her  kitchen. 
They  are  the  first  things  of  her  very  own  she  has  pos- 
sessed. To  ask  her  to  part  with  them  after  three  months 
among  them  as  a  model  housekeeper  is  positively  cruel. 
But  to  do  my  mother  justice  she  did  not  hesitate  for  a 


152  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

moment,  and  hastened  to  follow  my  grandmother's 
wise  advice.  Her  conjugal  happiness  was  more  to  her 
than  all  the  silver  plate  in  the  world.  She  begged  her 
mother  to  carry  out  the  transaction  and  send  the  money 
to  her  abroad.  With  the  small  sum  my  grandmother 
was  able  to  give  her  at  once,  my  mother  hurried  away 
her  husband,  who  was  also  very  glad  to  go.  They 
started  three  days  before  Easter,  which  was  contrary  to 
all  my  mother's  religious  habits.  She  was  so  afraid  of 
some  fresh  manqeuvre  on  the  part  of  the  Dostoyevsky 
family  that  she  could  only  breathe  freely  when  they  had 
crossed  the  frontier.  My  mother  would  have  been  very 
much  startled  if  some  one  had  told  her  that  day  that 
she  would  not  cross  it  again  for  four  years. 


XVII 

TRAVELS   IN  EUROPE  :     FIRST  PART 

The  wedding  journey  of  my  parents  is  described  in 
detail  in  my  mother's  journal.  I  refer  my  readers  to 
this  book,  which  will  be  published  at  no  distant  date, 
and  I  will  say  but  a  few  words  concerning  their  life 
abroad. 

After  resting  at  Vilna  and  Berlin,  my  parents  went 
to  Dresden,  and  stayed  there  for  two  months.  They 
left  Petersburg  in  one  of  those  snow-storms  which  are 
so  frequent  in  Russia  in  April ;  at  Dresden  they  found 
the  spring  awaiting  them.  Here  the  trees  were  in  blossom, 
the  birds  were  singing,  the  sky  was  blue,  all  Nature 
seemed  in  holiday  mood.  This  sudden  change  of 
climate  made  a  great  impression  on  my  parents.  They 
dined  in  the  open  air  on  the  verandah  at  Bruhl's,  listened 
to  the  music  in  the  Grossen  Garten,  and  explored  the 
picturesque  landscape  of  Saxon  Switzerland.  Their 
hearts  expanded.  Now  that  there  were  no  longer  any 
schemers  to  come  between  them,  they  understood  each 
other  much  better  than  before.  The  sympathy  they 
had  felt  for  each  other  before  marriage  soon  became 
love,  and  their  real  honeymoon  began  at  last.  My 
mother  never  forgot  those  enchanted  months.  Later, 
in  her  widowhood,  when  she  was  often  obliged  to  go  to 
Karlsbad  or  Wiesbaden  to  take  the  waters,  she  always 
completed  her  "  cure  "  by  spending  a  few  weeks  in 
Dresden.  She  visited  all  the  places  where  she  had 
been  with  my  father,  went  to  look  at  the  pictures  he  had 
admired  in  the  famous  gallery,  dined  at  the  restaurants 

153 


154  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

where  they  had  taken  their  meals,  and  dreamed  of  the 
past,  hstening  to  the  music  in  the  Grossen  Garten. 
She  said  that  the  weeks  at  Dresden  were  the  happiest 
of  all  those  she  spent  in  Europe. 

I  could  never  understand  this  love  of  a  young  girl  of 
nineteen  for  a  man  of  forty-five,  and  I  often  asked  my 
mother  how  she  could  have  loved  a  husband  more  than 
double  her  age.  "  But  he  was  young  !  "  she  replied, 
smiling.  "  You  can't  imagine  how  young  your  father 
still  was  !  He  would  laugh  and  joke,  and  find  amuse- 
ment in  everything,  like  a  boy.  He  was  much  gayer, 
much  more  interesting  than  the  young  men  of  that 
period,  among  whom  it  was  the  fashion  to  wear  spectacles 
and  to  look  like  old  professors  of  zoology." 

It  is  true  that  the  Lithuanians  preserve  their  youth- 
fulness  of  mind  till  late  in  life.  When  they  are  past 
fifty  they  will  often  amuse  themselves  like  children; 
looking  at  them  one  says  that  in  spite  of  years  they  will 
never  grow  old.  This  was  the  case  with  Dostoyevsky. 
He  was  fifty-nine  when  he  died,  but  he  was  young  to 
the  end.  His  hair  never  turned  grey,  but  always  kept 
its  light  brown  colour.  On  the  other  hand,  my  mother 
inherited  the  Swedish  character  of  her  ancestors.  Now 
Swedish  women  have  one  quality  which  distinguishes 
them  from  all  the  other  women  of  Europe  :  they  cannot 
criticise  their  husbands.  They  see  their  faults  and  try 
to  correct  them,  but  they  never  judge  them.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  Swedish  women  are,  so  far,  the  only  ones 
who  have  realised  the  beautiful  ideal  of  S.  Paul,  that 
husband  and  wife  are  one  flesh.  "  How  can  one  criticise 
one's  husband?"  Swedes  have  answered  indignantly, 
when  I  have  discussed  this  national  peculiarity.  "  He 
is  too  dear  to  be  criticised."  This  was  just  my  mother's 
point  of  view ;  her  husband  was  too  dear  to  be  criticised. 
She  preferred  to  love  him,  and  after  all  this  was  the 
surest  way  of  being  happy  with  him.     All  her  life  she 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  155 

spoke  of  Dostoyevsky  as  an  ideal  man,  and  when  she 
became  a  widow  she  brought  her  children  up  to  worship 
their  father. 

In  July,  when  it  began  to  get  very  hot  in  Dresden,  my 
parents  left  for  Baden-Baden,  It  was  an  unfortunate 
idea;  no  sooner  did  my  father  see  the  roulette-tables 
again,  than  the  gambling  fever  seized  him  like  a  disease. 
He  played,  lost,  went  through  crises  of  exultation  and  of 
despair.  My  mother  was  greatly  alarmed.  When  she 
had  transcribed  The  Gambler  she  had  not  known  that 
her  husband  had  depicted  himself  in  it.  She  wept  and 
implored  him  to  leave  Baden-Baden;  finally  she  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  him  away  to  Switzerland.  When  they 
arrived  at  Geneva  the  madness  left  my  father,  and  he 
cursed  his  unhappy  passion.  My  parents  liked  Geneva, 
and  decided  to  spend  the  winter  there.  They  did  not 
wish  to  return  to  Petersburg ;  they  were  happy  abroad, 
and  they  thought  with  horror  of  the  intrigues  of  their 
relatives.  My  mother,  moreover,  was  no  longer  able 
to  take  long  journeys;  she  was  enceinte,  and  this  first 
pregnancy  was  not  easy.  She  took  a  dislike  to  noisy 
hotels,  and  my  father  rented  a  small  flat  from  two  old 
maids,  who  were  very  kind  to  my  mother.  She  spent 
most  of  her  time  in  bed,  only  getting  up  to  go  and  dine 
at  the  restaurant.  After  the  meal  she  would  come  home 
and  go  to  bed  again,  while  her  husband  stayed  to  read 
the  Russian  and  foreign  newspapers.  Now  that  he  was 
living  in  Europe,  he  took  a  passionate  interest  in  all 
European  questions.^ 

My  parents  led  a  very  solitary  life  in  Geneva.  At 
the  beginning  of  their  stay  in  Switzerland  they  met  a 
Russian  friend,  who  often  came  to  see  them.  When  he 
left  for  Paris  they  did  not  seek  any  further  acquaint- 

^  His  favourite  newspaper  was  V Indipendance  Beige,  which 
he  often  mentions  in  his  works. 


156  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

ances;    they  were  preparing  for  the  great  event  which 
was  to  transform  their  lives. 

My  little  sister  was  born  in  February,  and  was  named 
Sophie  after  my  father's  favourite  niece,  my  Aunt  Vera's 
daughter.  Dostoyevsky  was  very  happy;  at  last  he 
tasted  the  delights  of  fatherhood,  of  which  he  had  so 
long  dreamt.  "  It  is  the  greatest  joy  a  man  can  know 
here  on  earth,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend.  He  was  immensely 
interested  in  the  baby,  observed  the  soul  which  looked 
at  him  through  the  child's  dim  eyes,  and  declared  that 
she  recognised  him  and  smiled  at  him.  Alas  !  his  joy 
was  short-lived. 

My  mother's  first  accouchement  had  caused  her  unusual 
suffering,  and  her  anaemia  had  been  much  aggravated 
by  it.  She  was  unable  to  nurse  the  baby  herself,  and  it 
was  not  possible  to  find  a  wet  nurse  at  Geneva.  The 
peasant  women  would  not  leave  their  homes,  and  ladies 
who  wished  to  have  their  infants  nursed  were  obliged 
to  send  them  up  into  the  mountains.  My  mother 
refused  to  part  with  her  treasure,  and  determined  to 
bring  up  little  Sophie  by  hand.  Like  many  first-born 
children,  Sophie  was  very  fragile.  My  mother  knew 
little  about  the  rearing  of  infants ;  the  kind  old  maids 
who  helped  her  with  her  charge  knew  even  less.  The 
poor  baby  vegetated  for  three  months,  and  then  left 
this  troublous  world  for  another. 

The  grief  of  my  parents  was  overwhelming.  My 
grandmother,  who  had  just  arrived  from  Petersburg  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  her  new  grandchild,  comforted 
them  as  far  as  she  could.  Seeing  that  my  mother  spent 
all  her  time  in  the  cemetery,  sobbing  on  the  little  grave, 
my  grandmother  proposed  that  she  should  be  taken 
away  to  Vevey.  There  the  three  spent  a  most  melan- 
choly summer.  My  mother  was  constantly  escaping 
from  the  house,  and  going  by  steamer  to  Geneva,  to 
take  flowers  to  her  little  lost  one.     She  would  come 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  157 

back  in  tears ;  her  health  became  worse  and  worse.  My 
father,  for  his  part,  was  uneasy  in  Switzerland.  A  denizen 
of  the  plains,  he  was  accustomed  to  vast  horizons ;  the 
mountains  round  Lake  Leman  oppressed  him.  "  They 
crush  me,  they  dwarf  my  ideas,"  he  would  say;  "  I 
cannot  write  anything  of  value  in  this  country." 

My  parents  accordingly  decided  to  spend  the  winter 
in  Italy;  they  hoped  the  southern  sun  might  restore 
my  mother's  health.  They  went  away  alone;  my 
grandmother  remained  in  Switzerland  with  her  Svatkov- 
sky  grandchildren,  who  were  to  spend  the  winter  in 
Geneva  by  the  doctor's  orders. 

My  parents  travelled  across  the  Simplon  by  the 
diligence.  My  mother  always  recalled  this  journey  with 
pleasure.  It  was  the  month  of  August  and  the  weather 
was  magnificent.  The  diligence  went  up  slowly;  the 
passengers  preferred  to  walk,  taking  short  cuts.  My 
mother  walked,  leaning  on  my  father's  arm ;  it  seemed 
to  her  that  she  had  left  her  sorrow  on  the  other  side  of 
the  Alps,  and  that  in  Italy  life  would  smile  upon  her  once 
again.  She  was  barely  twenty-one,  and  at  that  age 
the  thirst  for  happiness  is  so  great  that  the  loss  of  a 
baby  of  three  months  old  cannot  darken  one's  days  for 
very  long. 

My  parents'  first  sojourn  in  Italy  was  at  Milan.  My 
father  was  anxious  to  see  the  famous  cathedral  which 
had  so  greatly  impressed  his  imagination  on  his  first 
visit  to  Europe.  He  examined  it  thoroughly,  stood  lost 
in  admiration  before  the  fa9ade,  and  even  went  up  on 
the  roof  to  see  the  view  which  extends  over  the  wide 
Lombard  plain.  When  the  autumn  rains  began,  my 
parents  left  for  Florence,  and  settled  there  for  the  winter. 
They  knew  no  one  in  the  city,  and  spent  several  months 
tete-a-tete.  Dostoyevsky  never  cared  for  casual  acquaint- 
anceship which  leads  no  further.  When  a  man  pleased 
him,  he  gave  him  his  heart,  and  remained  his  friend  for 


158  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

life,  but  he  could  not  offer  his  friendship  to  every 
passer-by. 

My  father  was  busily  occupied  in  Florence;  he  was 
writing  his  novel,  The  Idiot,  which  he  had  begun  at 
Geneva.  My  mother  helped  him,  taking  down  the 
scenes  he  dictated  to  her  in  shorthand.  She  was 
careful,  however,  not  to  disturb  him  in  his  hours  of 
meditation,  and  set  herself  to  make  a  thorough  study 
of  Florence,  its  beautiful  churches  and  its  magnificent 
art  collections.  She  habitually  arranged  to  meet  her 
husband  in  front  of  some  famous  picture ;  when  he  had 
finished  his  writing,  Dostoyevsky  would  join  her  in  the 
Pitti  Palace.  He  did  not  like  to  study  pictures  Baedeker 
in  hand;  on  his  first  visit  to  a  gallery  he  would  single 
out  certain  pictures  which  pleased  him,  and  would  often 
come  back  to  admire  them,  without  looking  at  any 
others.  He  would  stand  for  a  long  time  before  his 
favourites,  explaining  to  his  young  wife  the  ideas  these 
pictures  evoked  in  him.  Then  they  would  take  a  walk 
along  the  Arno.  On  their  way  home  they  would  often 
make  a  detour  to  see  the  doors  of  the  Baptistry,  which 
enchanted  my  father.  In  fine  weather  they  would  stroll 
in  the  Cascine  or  the  Boboli  Gardens.  The  roses  bloom- 
ing there  in  the  month  of  January  struck  their  northern 
imaginations.  At  that  time  of  the  year  they  were 
accustomed  to  see  rivers  covered  with  ice,  streets  full  of 
snow,  and  passers-by  muffled  in  furs;  the  January 
blossoms  seemed  to  them  incredible.  My  father  speaks 
of  the  Boboli  roses  in  his  letters  to  his  friends,  my 
mother  speaks  of  them  in  her  reminiscences. 

My  parents  were  very  happy  in  Florence;  I  think 
this  was  the  most  perfect  moment  of  their  wedding 
journey.  Dostoyevsky  loved  Italy;  he  said  the 
Italians  reminded  him  of  the  Russians.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  good  deal  of  Slav  blood  in  Northern  Italy. 
The  Venetii  who  built  Venice  were  of  Slav  origin  and 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  159 

belonged  to  the  same  Slav  tribe  as  the  Russians,  a  tribe 
whose  home  was  in  the  Carpathians.  Intermarrying 
with  Italians,  the  Venetii  gave  their  Slav  blood  to  the 
inhabitants  of  northern  Italy.  This  blood  flowed  all 
over  the  plain  of  the  Po,  and  descended  along  the  Apen- 
nines. Russians  travelling  in  Italy  are  often  surprised 
to  find  in  the  depths  of  Tuscany  or  Umbria  peasant- 
women  of  the  same  type  as  those  they  have  seen  at 
home.  They  have  the  same  soft  and  patient  look,  the 
same  endurance  in  work,  the  same  sense  of  self-denial. 
The  costume  and  the  manner  of  knotting  the  handker- 
chief about  the  head  are  similar.  Thus  the  Russians 
love  Italy,  and  look  upon  it  as  to  some  extent  their 
second  country. 


XVIII 

TRAVELS   IN  EUROPE  :     SECOND   PART 

Towards  the  spring  my  mother  became  enceinte  for 
the  second  time.  The  news  delighted  my  father;  the 
birth  of  little  Sophie  had  made  him  more  eager  than 
ever  to  be  a  father.  As  the  climate  of  Florence  suited 
my  mother,  my  parents  at  first  proposed  to  spend  another 
year  in  Italy.  But  they  changed  their  minds  as  the  time 
for  my  mother's  confinement  approached.  The  fact 
was  that  in  those  days  the  hotels  and  furnished  flats 
in  Florence  did  not  as  yet  possess  any  of  those  polyglot 
servants  who  speak  all  languages  equally  badly.  The 
humble  Florentine  servants  were  content  to  speak  good 
Italian.  My  mother  soon  learned  to  talk  this  language 
after  a  fashion,  and  acted  as  interpreter  to  my  father, 
who  was  too  busy  with  his  novel  to  study  Italian.  Now 
that  she  was  about  to  take  to  her  bed,  and  perhaps  be 
dangerously  ill,  how,  she  wondered,  would  her  husband 
be  able  to  manage  among  Italian  servants  and  nurses. 
My  father  wondered  also,  and  told  his  wife  he  would 
prefer  to  winter  in  a  country  where  he  could  speak  the 
language.  Dostoyevsky  at  this  time  was  beginning  to 
feel  an  interest  in  the  Slav  question,  which  eventually 
absorbed  him  so  entirely.  He  proposed  to  my  mother 
that  they  should  go  to  Prague,  where  he  wished  to  study 
the  Czechs.  My  parents  left  Florence  at  the  end  of  the 
summer,  and  travelled  by  easy  stages  that  my  mother 
might  not  be  tired,  stopping  at  Venice,  Trieste  and 
Vienna.  At  Prague  they  had  a  great  disappointment ; 
there  were  no  furnished  apartments  to  be  had  in  the  town. 

160 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  161 

Dostoyevsky  wanted  to  go  back  to  Vienna,  hoping  to 
find  there  some  Czech  societies,  hterary  or  otherwise; 
but  my  mother  dishked  Vienna.  She  proposed  that  they 
should  return  to  Dresden,  of  which  she  had  such  happy 
memories.  My  father  agreed;  he,  too,  remembered 
their  stay  in  Dresden  with  pleasure. 

My  parents  arrived  in  Dresden  a  fortnight  before  my 
birth.  Dostoyevsky  was  very  happy  to  have  a  little 
daughter  to  love  once  more.  "  I  saw  her  five  minutes 
after  her  arrival  in  the  world,"  he  wrote  to  one  of  his 
friends.  "  She  is  a  beauty,  and  the  image  of  me."  My 
mother  laughed  heartily  when  she  heard  this.  "  You 
flatter  yourself,"  she  said  to  her  husband.  "  Do  you 
think  you  are  handsome?"  Dostoyevsky  was  never 
handsome,  nor  was  his  daughter;  but  she  was  always 
proud  of  being  like  her  father. 

The  landlord  of  the  furnished  rooms  occupied  by  my 
parents  came  to  warn  Dostoyevsky  that  by  the  laws 
of  the  town  of  Dresden  he  must  go  at  once  to  the  police 
office  to  announce  the  birth  of  his  daughter  to  the  Saxon 
authorities. 

Dostoyevsky  hastened  to  the  office  and  declared  to 
the  officials  that  he  was  the  happy  father  of  a  little  girl 
called  Aimee.  The  Saxons  were  not  content  with  this, 
but  made  my  father  state  his  name,  age,  social  position, 
date  of  birth.  Having  satisfied  their  curiosity  on  the 
subject  of  my  father,  they  passed  on  to  his  wife,  and 
asked  what  her  maiden  name  was. 

Her  maiden  name  !  The  devil  !  Dostoyevsky  could 
not  remember  it !  He  racked  his  brains  in  vain  ! — he 
could  not  recall  it.  He  explained  matters  to  the  police 
officers,  and  asked  leave  to  go  and  consult  his  wife. 
The  worthy  Saxons  looked  at  him  with  amazement; 
never  had  they  encountered  such  an  absent-minded 
husband  !  They  allowed  Dostoyevsky  to  go.  He  came 
home  in  dudgeon. 

M 


162  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

"  What  is  your  name  ?  "  he  asked  his  wife  severely. 

"My  name?  Anna,"  rephed  my  mother,  much 
surprised. 

"  I  know  your  name  is  Anna.  I  want  to  know  your 
maiden  name." 

"Why?" 

"  Oh  !  it  is  not  I  who  would  know  it,  but  the  police 
here.  These  Germans  are  so  inquisitive.  They  insist 
on  knowing  what  you  were  called  before  your  marriage, 
and  I  have  completely  forgotten  !  " 

My  mother  instructed  her  husband,  and  advised  him 
to  write  the  name  on  a  bit  of  paper.  "  Otherwise  you 
will  forget  it  again,"  she  said  laughingly.  Dostoyevsky 
took  her  advice,  and  went  off  to  show  his  bit  of  paper 
triumphantly  to  the  Saxon  authorities. ^ 

My  mother's  health  had  improved  greatly  in  the 
Italian  climate,  and  she  was  able  to  nurse  me  herself. 
She  also  engaged  a  German  nurse  for  me,  distrusting  her 
own  inexperience.  My  grandmother  came  to  be  with 
her  daughter  during  her  confinement,  and  watched  over 
me  carefully,  fearing  a  second  domestic  calamity.  How- 
ever, I  was  not  at  all  like  my  elder  sister.  I  was  a  sturdy 
Slavo-Norman,  determined  not  to  leave  this  planet  until 
I  had  studied  it  thoroughly. 

My  grandmother  had  not  returned  to  Russia  after 
the  death  of  little  Sophie.  When  she  quitted  Peters- 
burg for  a  few  months,  she  had  left  the  management  of 
her  house  property  in  the  hands  of  one  of  her  relatives. 
Being  much  occupied  with  other  business,  he  let  all  the 

1  My  Russian  name  is  Lubov.  As  it  is  rather  difficult  for 
foreigners  to  pronounce,  we  got  into  the  habit  of  translating  it 
by  Aimee,  which  means  very  nearly  the  same  thing.  My  father 
used  to  call  me  Liuba,  which  is  the  Russian  diminutive  of  Lubov, 
and  I  figure  in  the  Dresden  letters  under  this  name.  As  I  grew 
older  I  preferred  the  pet  name  of  Lila,  which  my  grandmother 
gave  me,  and  which  was  easier  for  my  childish  tongue.  To  please 
me,  my  parents  also  called  me  Lila,  and  it  is  thus  that  Dostoyevsky 
writes  of  me  in  all  his  later  letters. 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  163 

houses  on  a  long  lease,  without  taking  the  trouble  to 
consult  my  grandmother.  As  she  could  not  return  to 
her  own  house  at  Petersburg,  my  grandmother  elected 
to  stay  near  her  daughter  Anna,  all  the  more  willingly 
because  her  favourite  daughter  Marie  was  also  spending 
the  greater  part  of  her  time  in  Europe.  Marie's  husband 
managed  the  affairs  of  one  of  his  former  pupils,  the 
Duke  of  Leuchtenberg,  who  lived  abroad,  and  constantly 
visited  the  Duke  either  at  Geneva  or  in  Rome.  My 
aunt,  who  was  very  intimate  with  the  morganatic  wife 
of  the  Duke,  always  accompanied  her  husband,  and  often 
took  her  children  with  her.  My  grandmother  went  from 
one  daughter  to  another,  and  was  very  happy  in  Europe, 
which  to  her  Swedish  mind  was  much  more  interesting 
than  Russia.  But  she  felt  the  separation  from  her  son, 
who  at  this  time  was  studying  agriculture  at  the  Petrov- 
skoe  Academy  near  Moscow.  My  mother  was  very  fond 
of  her  brother  Jean,  and  she,  too,  longed  to  see  him  after 
years  of  separation.  They  both  wrote  to  my  uncle  and 
begged  him  to  come  and  see  them.  He  got  leave,  and 
arrived  in  Dresden,  intending  to  stay  only  two  months, 
but  he  was  obliged  to  remain  there  over  two  years.  A 
strange  fatality  seemed  to  pursue  my  mother's  family 
in  this  connection :  whenever  any  of  them  visited 
Europe  intending  to  stay  a  few  months,  it  always  became 
necessary  for  them  to  remain  several  years.  My  Aunt 
Marie,  indeed,  never  returned  to  Russia.  She  died  in 
Rome  two  years  after  the  time  of  which  I  am  writing, 
and  was  buried  there. 

My  uncle  Jean  had  at  the  Academy  a  friend  whom  he 
greatly  loved  and  admired,  called  Ivanov.  He  was 
older  than  my  uncle,  whom  he  protected  and  looked  after 
as  if  he  had  been  a  younger  brother.  When  Ivanov 
heard  that  my  grandmother  wished  to  see  her  son,  he 
urged  my  uncle  strongly  to  accept  the  invitation  of  his 
relatives.     Knowing  the  somewhat  vacillating  character 


164  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

of  his  young  comrade,  Ivanov  went  himself  to  see  the 
Director  of  the  Academy,  persuaded  him  to  grant  my 
uncle  leave  of  absence  for  two  months,  took  steps  to 
hasten  the  issue  of  his  passport,  and  saw  him  off  at  the 
station.  My  uncle  was  somewhat  surprised  at  this 
eagerness  for  his  departure,  but  he  attached  no  import- 
ance to  it.  When  he  arrived  in  Dresden  he  talked 
enthusiastically  of  his  dear  Ivanov,  wrote  him  letters 
and  awaited  his  answers  impatiently.  A  few  weeks 
later  Ivanov  was  found  murdered  in  the  park  surround- 
ing the  Academy.  The  police  set  to  work  to  track  the 
murderer,  and  finally  discovered  a  political  plot,  in 
which  most  of  the  students  were  implicated.  These 
young  fanatics  had  been  working  to  overthrow  the 
Government,  instead  of  attending  to  their  agricultural 
studies.  Ivanov  was  one  of  the  chief  agitators;  he 
thought  better  of  it,  however,  began  to  have  doubts, 
and  finally  gave  notice  to  his  comrades  that  he  intended 
to  leave  the  secret  society.  The  young  revolutionaries 
were  furious  at  his  defection,  and  determined  to  punish 
it  by  death ;  they  enticed  him  into  a  lonely  part  of  the 
park  one  night,  and  there  one  of  his  comrades,  named 
Netchaieff,  killed  him  while  the  others  held  his  arms. 
This  political  affair,  which  was  known  as  the  Netchaieff 
Case,  made  a  great  sensation  in  Russia;  it  is  still 
remembered  there. 

The  curious  part  of  this  story  is  that  my  uncle,  who 
was  almost  inseparable  from  Ivanov,  knew  nothing  at 
all  of  the  plot.  It  is  probable  that  Ivanov,  who  was 
really  attached  to  him,  prevented  his  companions  from 
drawing  him  into  this  dangerous  business.  My  poor 
uncle  felt  his  friend's  death  bitterly ;  he  understood  now 
why  Ivanov  had  been  so  anxious  for  him  to  go  abroad. 
He  knew,  no  doubt,  the  fate  he  had  to  expect  from  his 
comrades,  and  wished  to  place  his  young  friend  out  of 
danger.     My  grandmother  was  greatly  alarmed  when 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  165 

she  heard  of  the  murder  of  Ivanov,  and  forbade  her  son 
to  return  to  Russia,  more  especially  as  the  Academy  of 
Agriculture  was  closed  by  order  of  the  Government. 
Throughout  the  proceedings,  my  uncle  settled  at  Dresden 
with  his  mother.  He  afterwards  married  a  young  girl 
of  the  Russian  colony  in  Dresden. 

The  Netchaieff  Case  made  a  deep  impression  on 
Dostoyevsky,  and  provided  the  subject  for  his  famous 
novel,  The  Possessed.  His  readers  at  once  recognised 
the  Netchaieff  affair,  though  the  action  took  place  in 
different  surroundings.  The  critics  argued  that  my 
father,  who  was  living  abroad  at  the  time  of  the 
Netchaieff  Case,  had  not  at  all  understood  it.  No  one 
knew  that  he  had  had  an  opportunity  of  forming  a  very 
clear  idea  of  the  plot  by  questioning  my  uncle  Jean, 
who  was  intimately  connected  with  the  victim,  the 
murderer,  and  the  other  revolutionaries  of  the  Academy, 
and  was  able  to  reproduce  their  conversation  and  their 
political  ideas.^ 

Schatov,  Verhovensky,  and  many  other  characters  in 
The  Possessed  are  portraits.  Of  course,  Dostoyevsky 
could  not  tell  his  critics  of  his  sources,  for  fear  of  com- 
promising his  brother-in-law.  My  uncle's  relations  were 
truly  thankful  that  the  police  had  forgotten  his  existence, 
and  had  not  ordered  him  to  attend  the  trial  as  a  witness. 
He  might  have  been  bewildered  and  have  said  something 
imprudent  that  would  have  endangered  him.  It  is 
probable  that  his  fellow-students  followed  Ivanov's 
example,  and  were  careful  not  to  commit  my  uncle, 
who   was   a   general   favourite.     He   was   a   delightful 

^  My  uncle  was  very  brave  and  very  intelligent.  He  had 
inherited  his  father's  religious  and  monarchical  ideas  and  was  not 
afraid  to  profess  them  openly.  It  was  probably  on  this  account 
that  his  comrades  concealed  the  plot  from  him.  If  our  revolu- 
tionaries were  merciless  to  those  who  forsook  them  after  sharing 
their  faith,  they  did  not  molest  those  who  had  the  courage  of 
their  opinions. 


166  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

creature,  a  true  Christian.  He  treated  all  men  as  his 
brothers.  People  began  by  laughing  at  him  and  ended 
by  loving  him.  Dostoyevsky  was  always  much  attached 
to  his  brother-in-law.i 

When  the  Russian  colony  heard  that  the  famous 
novelist  Dostoyevsky  was  living  in  Dresden  with  his 
family,  many  people  wished  to  make  his  acquaintance. 
They  came  to  see  him  and  invited  him  to  their  houses. 
My  mother  might  have  led  a  much  more  cheerful  life 
at  Dresden  than  at  Geneva  or  Florence,  but  she  was 
very  unhappy  there.  She  was  now  suffering  from  home- 
sickness, that  curious  malady  which  often  attacks  young 
creatures  who  have  been  torn  too  abruptly  from  their 
native  soil.  She  hated  Germany,  hated  foreigners. 
Dresden,  which  she  had  thought  so  charming,  now 
seemed  odious  to  her.  She  had  moments  of  despair, 
thinking  that  she  would  perhaps  never  see  her  dear 
Russia  again.  She  suffered  the  more  acutely  because, 
now  that  her  health  was  restored,  her  Norman  nature 
asserted  itself,  and  made  her  long  for  action  and 
struggle.  She  pined  in  her  furnished  flat,  between  her 
husband  and  her  child.  She  thought  that  at  Petersburg 
she  would  certainly  find  a  means  of  paying  off  the  debts 
which  were  crushing  her  life.  Moreover,  her  family 
affairs  were  causing  her  much  anxiety.  One  of  the 
houses  belonging  to  my  grandparents  was  to  come  to 
my  mother,  according  to  her  father's  will.  The  Russian 
law  did  not  allow  her  to  sell  it  before  her  brother  was 

^  A  curious  thing  happened  to  the  novel  The  Possessed.  When 
Dostoyevsky  began  it,  he  had  taken  Nicolai  Stavrogin  for  the 
hero,  but  when  he  had  nearly  finished  the  book,  he  realised  that 
Verhovensky  was  much  more  interesting,  and  decided  that  he 
must  be  the  hero.  He  had  to  rewrite  almost  the  whole  of  the 
book,  and  cut  out  several  chapters  in  which  he  had  developed 
his  study  of  Stavrogin.  My  mother  wanted  to  publish  one  of 
these  chapters  in  the  last  edition,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century. 
But  she  asked  the  advice  of  several  old  friends  of  my  father's, 
and  they  were  opposed  to  its  inclusion. 


TRAVELS   IN   EUROPE  167 

of  age.  Jean  was  now  just  on  the  verge  of  his  majority, 
and  my  mother  hoped  to  sell  her  house  and  pay  her 
husband's  debts.  The  house-agent,  who  had  taken  all 
my  grandmother's  property  on  lease,  paid  her  regularly 
for  the  first  few  months ;  then  he  had  ceased  to  pay,  and 
did  not  answer  the  letters  she  wrote  him.  My  mother 
wrote  to  friends  at  Petersburg  and  begged  them  to  go 
and  see  him  and  inquire  into  the  matter.  They  did  so, 
but  could  never  find  him  at  home;  the  neighbours 
whom  they  questioned  declared  that  his  business  was 
in  a  bad  way,  and  that  the  police  had  paid  him  visits. 
All  this  alarmed  my  mother,  and  she  implored  my  father 
to  return  to  Russia.  She  no  longer  feared  the  machina- 
tions of  his  relatives;  she  knew  that  she  had  now  her 
husband's  entire  confidence.  Her  character,  moreover, 
had  changed  greatly;  her  school-friends  scarcely  recog- 
nised their  gay  companion.  Privations,  exile,  the  influ- 
ence of  Europe,  where  life  is  more  serious  and  difficult 
than  the  childish  life  of  Russia,  had  prematurely  aged 
her. 

Dostoyevsky  was  not  home-sick,  and  felt  very  com- 
fortable abroad;  his  health  had  improved,  his  epileptic 
attacks  occurred  only  at  long  intervals.  Yet  he,  too, 
wanted  to  return  to  Petersburg;  he  feared  that  he 
would  cease  to  understand  Russia  if  he  stayed  any 
longer  in  Dresden.  All  his  life  he  had  this  fear,  in 
Germany  as  in  Siberia.  Probably  Dostoyevsky  was 
conscious  that  there  was  very  little  of  the  Russian  in 
him.  Turgenev  and  Count  Alexis  Tolstoy  spent  their 
whole  lives  abroad,  yet  this  did  not  prevent  them  from 
giving  their  readers  admirable  types  of  Great  Russia. 
They  nearly  always  spoke  French,  yet  they  wrote  most 
excellent  Russian.  These  writers  carried  Russia  with 
them  in  their  blood,  and  remained  eternally  Russian, 
though  they  naively  accounted  themselves  perfect 
Europeans.     My  father,  who,  on  the  other  hand,  gloried 


168  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

in  being  a  Russian,  was  really  much  more  European  than 
they.  He  was  capable  of  being  absorbed  by  Europe; 
it  was  therefore  more  dangerous  for  him  to  go  away  from 
Russia.  His  mastery  of  the  Russian  language  was  also 
imperilled.  It  has  often  been  made  a  reproach  to  my 
father  that  his  style  is  heavy,  incoherent  and  careless; 
this  has  been  explained  by  the  fact  that  he  was  obliged 
to  work  for  his  daily  bread,  and  had  not  time  to  correct 
his  manuscripts.  But  those  who  have  a  good  style  know 
that  it  is  easy  to  write  well  at  the  first  attempt.  I  think 
Dostoyevsky's  faulty  style  may  rather  be  accounted  for 
as  follows :  he  wrote  Russian  badly  because  it  was  not 
his  ancestral  tongue. 

During  the  second  part  of  her  stay  in  Dresden  my 
mother  became  enceinte  for  the  third  time.  She  proposed 
at  first  to  stay  at  Dresden  for  her  confinement;  then, 
fearing  illness  might  keep  her  another  year  in  Germany, 
she  changed  her  mind,  and  made  her  husband  start  for 
home  at  once.  We  arrived  at  Petersburg  a  few  days 
before  the  birth  of  my  brother  Fyodor. 


XIX 

THE    RETURN    TO    RUSSIA 

It  was  the  month  of  July,  and  my  parents  found  the 
city  deserted ;  all  their  friends  had  left  for  the  country. 
The  first  to  return  was  my  father's  stepson,  Paul  Issaieff, 
who  had  lately  married  a  pretty  middle-class  girl.  As 
my  mother  was  still  weak  after  her  recent  confinement, 
and  could  not  run  about  looking  for  a  flat,  he  offered  his 
services.  In  the  evening  he  would  come  and  show  my 
mother  sketch-plans  of  the  various  places  he  had 
inspected  during  the  day. 

"  But  why  do  you  look  at  such  large  flats  ?  "  she  said 
to  him.  "  Until  our  debts  are  paid,  we  must  be  content 
with  four  or  five  rooms  at  most." 

"  Four  or  five  rooms  !  Then  where  will  you  put  me 
and  my  wife?  " 

"  Were  you  thinking  of  living  with  us?  "  asked  my 
mother,  greatly  surprised. 

"  Of  course.  Would  you  have  the  heart  to  separate 
father  and  son  ?  " 

My  mother  was  exasperated.  "  You  are  not  my 
husband's  son,"  she  said  severely.  "  You  are  not  even 
related  to  him,  as  a  fact.  My  husband  took  care  of  you 
when  you  were  a  child,  but  his  duty  now  is  to  look  after 
his  own  children.  You  are  old  enough  now  to  work  and 
to  earn  your  own  living." 

Paul  Issaieff  was  overwhelmed  by  this  plain  speaking. 
He  was  not  to  consider  himself  the  son  of  the  famous 
Dostoyevsky  !  Others  had  better  claims  than  he  on  his 
"  papa  "  !     What  an  infamous  plot  had  been  hatched 

169 


170  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

against  him  !  He  was  furious,  and  so  was  his  young 
wife. 

"  He  promised  me,"  she  told  my  mother  ingenuously, 
"  that  we  should  all  live  together,  that  you  would  keep 
house,  and  that  I  should  have  nothing  to  do.  If  I  had 
known  that  he  was  deceiving  me,  I  certainly  would  not 
have  married  him." 

This  selfish  little  creature  became,  under  the  discipline 
of  years  and  sorrows,  an  excellent  wife  and  mother, 
respected  by  all  who  knew  her.  Poor  woman  !  her 
married  life  was  a  long  martyrdom. 

Seeing  that  nothing  could  shake  my  mother's  deter- 
mination, and  that  Dostoyevsky  was  of  one  mind  with 
his  wife  on  the  subject,  Paul  Issaieff  turned  for  sympathy 
to  my  father's  relatives,  complaining  bitterly  of  the  dark 
intrigues  of  his  "  stepmother,"  and  her  efforts  to  separate 
"father  and  son."  Dostoyevsky's  family  had  more 
sense  than  he.  They  realised  that  my  mother's  character 
had  developed,  that  the  timid  girl-bride  had  become  the 
energetic  wife,  able  to  protect  her  home  from  intruders. 
They  made  a  virtue  of  necessity,  and  ceased  to  harass 
her.  Their  position,  moreover,  had  greatly  improved 
during  the  past  four  years.  The  sons  had  grown  up 
and  were  able  to  work  for  their  living;  the  girls  had 
married,  and  their  husbands  helped  their  mother.  My 
aunt  Alexandra,  now  a  widow,  married  a  rich  man. 
The  only  members  of  the  family  dependent  on  my  father 
were  my  unhappy  uncle  Nicolai  and  the  worthless  Paul 
Issaieff. 

As  soon  as  my  mother's  health  was  restored,  she  took 
a  small  flat  and  furnished  it  cheaply.  Her  own  pretty 
furniture  had  all  been  sold.  Paul  Issaieff,  who  had 
undertaken  to  pay  the  interest  of  the  loan  on  the  furni- 
ture during  my  grandmother's  absence,  spent  the  money 
my  parents  had  sent  him  for  this  purpose  on  himself. 
Another    disappointment,    of   a   more    serious    nature, 


THE   RETURN   TO   RUSSIA  171 

awaited  my  mother  on  her  return  to  Petersburg.  My 
grandmother's  house-property  was  sold  by  auction  by 
order  of  the  poHce,  and  changed  owners  several  times. 
Thanks  to  a  badly  worded  lease,  the  agent  had  been  able 
to  pass  it  off  as  his  own.  The  only  hope  was  in  a  lawsuit, 
and  lawsuits  are  very  expensive  in  Russia.  My  mother 
preferred  to  give  up  her  share  of  the  inheritance ;  my 
grandmother  followed  her  example,  although  she  was 
now  utterly  ruined  as  a  result  of  her  unlucky  sojourn 
in  Europe.  Fortunately,  her  son  had  made  a  rich 
marriage  at  Dresden.  With  his  wife's  fortune  he  bought 
a  fine  estate  in  the  Government  of  Kursk,  and  set  to 
work  to  apply  the  theories  he  had  learnt  at  the  Academy 
of  Agriculture.  My  grandmother  went  to  live  with  him 
and  his  family,  and  soon  became  absorbed  in  his  agricul- 
tural experiments.  Now  that  her  favourite  daughter 
was  dead,  she  rarely  came  to  Petersburg.  Her  relations 
with  Dostoyevsky  were  always  cordial,  but  she  played  a 
very  small  part  in  his  life. 

H:  H:  4:  H^  ^  4: 

When  my  uncle  Mihail's  creditors  heard  that 
Dostoyevsky  had  returned  to  Petersburg,  they  at  once 
presented  themselves,  and  again  threatened  him  with 
imprisonment.  My  mother  then  entered  upon  the 
struggle,  for  which  she  had  been  bracing  herself  at 
Dresden.  She  lectured  them  and  argued  with  them,  and 
borrowed  from  money-lenders  to  pay  off  the  most 
rapacious.  Dostoyevsky  was  amazed  at  the  facility  with 
which  his  wife  manipulated  figures  and  talked  the  jargon 
of  notaries.  When  publishers  came  to  make  proposals 
to  him,  he  listened  to  them  quietly,  and  said  :  "I  cannot 
decide  anything  for  the  moment.  I  must  consult  my 
wife."  People  soon  began  to  understand  who  it  was 
that  managed  the  business  of  the  Dostoyevsky  house- 
hold, and  they  addressed  themselves  directly  to  her. 
Thus  my  father  was  relieved  of  all  wearisome  details, 


172  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

and  was  able  to  devote  himself  entirely  to  his 
works. 

With  a  view  to  paying  off  the  debts  quickly,  my 
mother  introduced  a  rigid  economy  in  her  home.  For 
many  years  we  had  to  live  in  very  modest  dwellings; 
we  had  only  two  servants,  and  our  meals  were  extremely 
frugal.  My  mother  made  her  own  dresses  and  her 
children's  frocks.  She  never  went  into  society,  and  very 
rarely  to  the  theatre,  in  which  she  delighted.  This 
austere  life  was  unnatural  at  her  age,  and  made  her 
unhappy.  She  was  often  in  tears;  her  melancholy 
disposition,  which  painted  the  future  in  the  darkest 
colours,  conjured  up  visions  of  an  old,  infirm  husband, 
sick  children,  a  poverty-stricken  household. ^  She  could 
not  understand  my  father's  serenity.  "  We  shall  never 
be  without  money,"  he  would  say,  in  tones  of  conviction. 
"  But  where  is  it  to  come  from  ?  "  she  would  ask,  vexed 
at  his  confidence.  My  mother  was  still  young.  There 
are  certain  truths  we  only  grasp  after  the  age  of  forty. 
My  father  knew  that  we  are  all  God's  workers,  and  that 
if  we  perform  our  task  faithfully,  the  Heavenly  Master 
will  not  forsake  us.  Dostoyevsky  had  perfect  faith  in 
God,  and  never  feared  for  the  future  of  his  family.  He 
was  right,  for  after  his  death  we  lacked  nothing. 

To  comfort  his  wife  and  lighten  her  heavy  burden, 
my  father  accepted  the  post  of  sub-editor  of  the  news- 
paper, The  Citizen,  edited  by  Prince  Mestchersky,  an 
absurd  person  who  was  the  laughing-stock  of  all  the 
other  journalists.  Mestchersky,  who  had  been  brought 
up  by  English  nurses  and  French  tutors,  could  not  even 
speak  Russian  correctly ;  my  father  had  to  be  always  on 
the  watch  to  prevent  him  from  publishing  something 

1  My  father's  Aunt  Kumanin  could  no  longer  help  him.  She 
died  while  we  were  in  Eiu:ope,  leaving  her  affairs  in  great  disorder. 
Her  heirs  quarrelled  over  her  property  for  years.  We  did  not 
receive  our  share  tUl  after  my  father's  death. 


THE   RETURN  TO   RUSSIA  173 

ridiculous  in  the  paper.  His  journalistic  work  exhausted 
him  terribly,  and  directly  the  most  pressing  of  the  debts 
were  paid,  my  father  hastened  to  leave  The  Citizen  and 
its  fantastic  editor  to  their  fate. 

My  mother,  for  her  part,  did  not  spend  all  her  time 
in  weeping.  She  prepared  my  father's  novels  which  had 
appeared  in  reviews  for  publication  in  book  form,  which 
brought  in  a  little  money.  Moreover,  it  gave  her  experi- 
ence ;  she  became  an  excellent  editor  in  time,  and  after 
my  father's  death  published  several  complete  editions 
of  his  works.  She  was  the  first  Russian  woman  to  under- 
take work  of  this  nature.  Her  example  was  followed  by 
Countess  Tolstoy,  who  came  to  Petersburg  to  make  my 
mother's  acquaintance  and  ask  her  advice.  She  gave 
all  the  necessary  information,  and  thenceforward  all 
Tolstoy's  works  were  published  by  his  wife.  Long  after- 
wards, when  at  Moscow,  my  mother  showed  the  Countess 
the  musuem  she  had  organised  in  memory  of  her  husband 
in  one  of  the  towers  of  the  Historical  Museum  at  Moscow. 
The  idea  appealed  to  Countess  Tolstoy,  and  she  asked  the 
directors  of  the  Museum  to  let  her  have  a  similar  tower 
for  a  Tolstoy  Museum.  These  two  Europeans  ^  were 
not  content  to  be  merely  wives  and  mothers;  they 
aspired  to  help  their  husbands  to  propagate  their  ideas, 
and  they  were  anxious  to  place  all  relics  of  their  great 
men  in  safe  custody.  Another  friend  of  my  mother's, 
Madame  Shestakov,  asked  her  advice  in  the  organisation 
of  a  museum  in  memory  of  her  brother,  the  famous 
composer.  Glinka.  My  mother  helped  her  considerably, 
and  thus  was  the  founder  of  one  museum,  and  the 
inspirer  of  two  others. 

My  father  lived  a  very  retired  life  during  the  first  years 
of  his  return  to  Russia;  he  went  out  very  little,  and 
received  only  a  few  intimate  friends.     He  made  few 

1  Countess  Tolstoy  was  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Bers,  a  native  of 
the  Baltic  Provinces. 


174  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

appearances  in  poUic;  the  Peteistwrrg  students  kept 
up  their  grudge  agaxnst  him,  and  rarely  invited  hrm  to 
thdr  literary  gathezings.  They  had  scarcdy  begun  to 
firrr^  ^bat  Dostoyevsky  had  "igiHipH  than  in  the 
p  :  :i.  :i  RaskoliiikDv,  when  he  o&nded  than  still 
nzi^deepty.  In  his  novel.  The  Patteard,  he  had  jJainly 
Ti.  — 7.  'z.±ni  the  foDy  and  madiipss  of  rertdntionary  pso- 
p^.^^c^^  Our  yoimg  moi  -wexe  stnp^ed;  they  had 
lookfd  upcMi  the  anarchists  as  Fhitarchian  heroes.  This 
Wnssian  admiralioo  for  ineendiarieSj  which  is  so  «"*rf^f^ 
to  Enn^ieaiis,  is  easify  accoonted  for  by  the  Orkntal 
doth  d  my  conopatziots.  It  is  nmch  eaao-  to  throw  a 
bcxnb  and  mn  away  to  a  totaga  coontry  than  to  devote 
one's  Kfe  to  the  soviee  of  one's  fa  I  lift  land,  after  the 
fadwon  of  patriots  dseirheze. 

Dostoyevsky  attached  no  nnpoztaiieeto  the  dis|^easnre 
c^  the  students,  and  wasted  no  regrets  on  his  lost 
pc^pul^ty  with  them.  He  loc^jed  upon  than  as  mis- 
guided boys,  and  a  man  of  his  catilne  has  no  need  of 
youthful  adolatiGn.  The  joy  he  felt  in  the  (seatxHi  of 
his  mastripftcccs  ritjily  rewarded  his  toil;  popular 
aimiairyr  could  add  nothing  to  it.  I  think  my  father 
was  happter  in  these  early  years  of  his  retnm  to  Peteis- 
boig  titan  lata-,  in  the  agitated  perioi  ::  Lis  rr^^t 
soeoesses.  ffis  wife  loved  him,  his  chiMre'  iz:  -f  f  i  '-'—. 
with  their  infantine  {Hattie  and  laughtez': 
often  viated  him,  ajMl  he  could  PTrhange  idc 
than.  His  health  had  imjHoved,  his  attars  a€c^_...v 
were  no  hngez-  frequent,  and  the  mental  disease  which 
to  dose  his  caieer  had  not  vet  declared  itself. 


XX 

LITTLE   ALEXEY 

We  used  to  spend  the  four  summer  months  at  Staraja 
Russa,  a  Httle  watering-place  in  the  Government  of 
Novgorod,  not  far  from  the  great  Lake  of  Ilmen.  The 
doctors  advised  my  parents  to  go  there  for  the  sake  of 
my  health  the  first  year  after  our  return  to  Russia.  The 
baths  of  Staraja  Russa  did  me  a  great  deal  of  good,  and 
my  parents  returned  yearly.  The  quiet,  sleepy  little 
town  pleased  Dostoyevsky ;  he  was  able  to  work  in  peace 
there.  We  rented  a  little  villa  belonging  to  Colonel 
Gribbe,  a  native  of  the  Baltic  Provinces,  serving  in  the 
Russian  army.  With  the  savings  he  had  made  during 
his  military  life,  the  old  officer  had  built  a  small  house 
in  the  German  style  of  the  Baltic  Provinces,  a  house  full 
of  surprises  :  cupboards  concealed  in  the  walls ;  planks 
which  when  lifted  up  revealed  corkscrew  staircases,  dark 
and  dusty.  Everything  in  this  house  was  on  a  small 
scale  :  the  low  rooms  were  furnished  with  old  Empire 
furniture ;  the  green  mirrors  distorted  the  faces  of  those 
who  had  the  courage  to  look  into  them.  Paper  scrolls, 
pasted  on  linen,  hung  on  the  walls,  presenting  to  our 
childish  eyes  monstrous  Chinese  ladies  with  claw-like 
nails  and  feet  squeezed  into  tiny  shoes.  A  covered 
verandah  with  coloured  glass  panes  was  our  delight, 
and  the  Chinese  billiard-table,  with  its  glass  balls  and 
little  bells,  amused  us  on  the  long  rainy  days  so  frequent 
during  our  northern  summers.  Behind  the  house  was 
a  garden  with  comical  little  flower-beds.  All  sorts  of 
fruits  grew  in  this  garden,  which  was  intersected  by 

175 


176  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

tiny  canals.  The  Colonel  had  constructed  these  himself 
to  protect  his  raspberries  and  currants  from  the  spring 
inundations  of  the  treacherous  Pereritza  river,  on  the 
banks  of  which  his  villa  stood.  In  summer  the  Colonel 
retired  into  two  rooms  on  the  ground-floor,  and  let  the 
rest  of  the  house  to  visitors.  This  was  the  custom  at 
Staraja  Russa  in  those  days,  when  there  were  no  villas 
to  be  let  for  the  summer  season.  Later,  after  the 
Colonel's  death,  my  parents  bought  the  little  house  for 
a  song  from  his  heirs. ^  My  father  spent  all  his  summers 
there,  except  that  of  1877,  when  we  paid  a  visit  to  my 
uncle  Jean  in  the  Government  of  Kursk.  The  scene  of 
The  Brothers  Karamazov  is  laid  in  the  little  town ;  when 
I  read  it  in  later  years  I  recognised  the  topography  of 
Staraja  Russa.  Old  Karamazov' s  house  is  the  villa, 
with  slight  modifications;  the  beautiful  Grushenka  is 
a  young  provincial  whom  my  parents  knew  at  Staraja 
Russa;  the  Plotnikov  establishment  was  my  father's 
favourite  shop.  The  drivers  of  the  troikas,  Audrey  and 
Timofey,  were  our  favourite  drivers,  who  took  us  every 
summer  to  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Ilmen,  to  the  point 
where  the  steamers  stopped.  Sometimes  one  had  to 
wait  there  several  days,  and  the  sojourn  in  a  big  village 
on  the  lake  is  described  by  Dostoyevsky  in  the  last 
chapters  of  The  Possessed. 

My  father  led  a  very  secluded  life  at  Staraja  Russa. 
He  rarely  went  to  the  Park  and  the  Casino,  the  resort  and 
rendezvous  of  the  visitors.  He  preferred  to  walk  on 
the  banks  of  the  river,  in  the  more  retired  places.     He 


1  Colonel  Gribbe  possessed  four  miniatures  which  he  had  bought 
from  a  soldier  in  his  regiment,  who  had  no  doubt  looted  them  in 
some  Polish  palace,  on  the  occasion  of  one  of  the  numerous 
Polish  revolts.  They  represented  four  princes  and  a  princess  of 
the  Lithuanian  dynasty  of  the  Jagellons.  My  father  admired 
these  miniatures  greatly ;  he  bought  them  from  the  heirs  of  the 
old  Colonel  and  hung  them  in  his  bedroom.  He  said  that  the 
young  princess  reminded  him  of  his  mother. 


LITTLE   ALEXEY  177 

invariably  took  the  same  road,  and  passed  along  with 
downcast  eyes,  lost  in  thought.  As  he  always  went  out 
at  the  same  hour,  the  beggars  lay  in  wait  for  him,  knowing 
that  he  never  refused  alms.  Absorbed  in  his  own 
meditations,  he  distributed  these  mechanically,  without 
noticing  that  he  repeatedly  gave  to  the  same  persons. 
My  mother,  however,  saw  through  the  tricks  of  the 
beggars,  and  was  much  amused  by  her  husband's 
absent-minded  ways.  She  was  young  and  fond  of 
practical  jokes.  One  evening,  seeing  him  returning  from 
his  walk,  she  threw  a  shawl  over  her  head,  took  me  by  the 
hand,  and  stood  by  the  roadside.  When  he  approached, 
she  began  to  whine  plaintively:  "Kind  gentleman, 
have  pity  on  me.  I  have  a  sick  husband  and  two  children 
to  support."  Dostoyevsky  stopped,  glanced  at  my 
mother,  and  handed  her  some  coins.  He  was  very 
angry  when  she  burst  out  laughing.  "  How  could  you 
play  me  such  a  trick — before  the  child,  too  ?  "  he  said 
bitterly. 

This  eternal  dreaminess,  so  characteristic  of  writers 
and  men  of  science,  was  a  great  annoyance  to  my  father, 
who  considered  it  humiliating  and  ridiculous.  He 
wished  intensely  to  be  like  others.  But  great  minds 
cannot  manifest  themselves  after  the  fashion  of  common- 
place men.  Dostoyevsky  could  not  live  like  his  fellows. 
All  his  life,  as  at  the  Engineers'  School,  he  stood  apart 
in  the  embrasure  of  a  window,  dreaming,  reading  and 
admiring  Nature,  while  the  rest  of  humanity  laughed, 
wept,  played,  ran,  and  amused  itself  in  crowds.  A  great 
writer  hardly  lives  on  this  earth;  he  spends  his  days 
in  the  imaginary  world  of  his  characters.  He  eats 
mechanically,  without  noticing  of  what  his  dinner 
consists.  He  is  astonished  when  the  night  comes;  he 
had  supposed  that  the  day  was  still  young.  He  does  not 
hear  the  trivial  things  that  are  said  around  him;  he 
walks  in  the  streets,  talking  to  himself,  laughing  and 


178  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

gesticulating,  till  passers-by  smile,  taking  him  for  a 
madman.  Suddenly  he  will  stop,  struck  by  the  look  of 
an  unknown  person,  which  stamps  itself  on  his  brain. 
A  word,  a  phrase  he  overhears  reveals  to  him  a  whole 
life,  an  ideal  which  will  eventually  find  expression  in 
his  works. 

The  little  villa  of  Staraja  Russa  no  longer  exists. 
Built  of  poor  wood  bought  at  a  low  price  by  the  old 
Colonel,  it  was  unable  to  resist  the  annual  inundations 
of  the  Pereritza,  and  at  last  fell  to  pieces,  in  spite  of  all 
efforts  to  save  it.  As  long  as  it  survived  it  attracted 
many  visitors.  All  who  came  to  Staraja  Russa  made 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  little  house  where  Dostoyevsky  spent 
the  last  summers  of  his  life.  They  looked  at  the  table 
on  which  he  had  written  The  Brothers  Karamazov,  the 
old  arm-chairs  in  which  he  sat  to  read,  the  numerous 
souvenirs  of  him  we  had  kept.i  Among  these  pious 
pilgrims  was  the  Grand  Duke  Vladimir,  who  came  one 
day  when  he  was  in  the  neighbourhood  holding  a  review 
of  young  soldiers.  He  told  my  mother  how  greatly 
he  admired  Dostoyevsky.  "  This  is  not  the  first  domicile 
of  his  I  have  visited,"  he  added.  "  Passing  through 
Siberia,  I  stopped  at  Omsk  to  see  the  prison  where  he 
suffered  so  greatly.  It  is  entirely  changed  now.  The 
Memories  of  the  House  of  the  Dead  effected  a  vast  reform 
in  all  Siberian  prisons.  What  a  genius  your  husband 
was  !  What  a  power  of  touching  the  heart  he  had  !  " 
The  Grand  Duke  Vladimir  was  the  grandson  of  Nicholas 
I,  who  had  condemned  my  father  to  penal  servitude. 
Ideas  change  quickly  in  Russia,  and  grandchildren  are 
ready  to  recognise  the  misdeeds  of  their  grandparents. 

My  father  liked  Staraja  Russa  so  well,  that  my 
mother  proposed  we  should  spend  a  winter  there  in 
order  to  economise  and  pay  off  the  debts  more  rapidly. 

^  These  relics  were  all  placed  in  a  little  museum  we  made  in 
our  new  villa. 


LITTLE   ALEXEY  179 

They  took  another  villa  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  a 
larger  and  warmer  house,  and  we  spent  several  months 
there.  In  the  course  of  this  winter  my  brother  Alexey 
was  born.  There  had  been  some  discussion  as  to  his 
name.  My  mother  wished  to  call  him  after  her  beloved 
brother,  Jean.  Dostoyevsky  suggested  Stepan,  in 
honour  of  that  Bishop  Stepan  who,  according  to  him, 
was  the  founder  of  our  Orthodox  family.  My  mother 
was  somewhat  surprised  at  this,  as  my  father  rarely 
spoke  of  his  ancestors.  I  imagine  that  Dostoyevsky, 
who  felt  an  ever-increasing  interest  in  the  Orthodox 
Church,  wished  to  show  his  gratitude  to  the  first  of  our 
Lithuanian  ancestors  who  had  adopted  Orthodoxy. 
However,  my  mother  disliked  the  name  Stepan,  and  my 
parents  finally  agreed  to  call  the  child  Alexey.  My 
mother's  health  had  improved  so  much  that  the  birth 
of  this  child  caused  her  little  suffering.  Little  Alexey 
seemed  strong  and  healthy,  but  he  had  a  curious  forehead. 
It  was  oval,  almost  angular.  His  little  head  was  like 
an  egg.  This  did  not  make  him  an  ugly  baby ;  it  only 
gave  him  a  quaint  expression  of  astonishment.  As  he 
grew  older,  Alexey  became  my  father's  favourite.  My 
brother  Fyodor  and  I  were  forbidden  to  go  into  our 
father's  room  uninvited ;  but  this  rule  did  not  apply  to 
Alexey.  As  soon  as  his  nurse's  back  was  turned  he  would 
escape  from  his  nursery,  and  run  to  his  father,  exclaim- 
ing :   "  Papa,  zizi  !  "  i 

Dostoyevsky  would  lay  aside  his  work,  take  the  child 
on  his  knee,  and  place  his  watch  against  the  baby's 
ear,  and  Ahosha  would  clap  his  little  hands,  delighted 
at  the  ticking.  He  was  very  intelligent  and  lovable, 
and  was  deeply  mourned  by  the  whole  family  when  he 
died,  at  the  age  of  two  and  a  half  years,  at  Petersburg, 
in  the  month  of  May,  just  before  our  annual  journey  to 
Staraja  Russa.  Our  boxes  were  packed,  and  the  last 
1  i.  e.  tchassi,  show. 


180  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

purchases  were  being  made,  when  Aliosha  was  suddenly 
seized  vrith  convulsions.  The  doctor  reassured  my 
mother,  telling  her  that  this  often  happened  to  children 
of  his  age.  AUosha  slept  well,  awoke  fresh  and  lively, 
and  asked  for  toys  to  play  with  in  his  little  bed.  Suddenly 
he  fell  back  in  another  con\'ulsion,  and  in  an  hour  he 
was  dead.  It  all  happened  so  quickly  that  my  brother 
and  I  were  still  in  the  room.  Seeing  my  parents  sobbing 
over  the  little  lifeless  body,  I  had  a  fit  of  hysterics.  I 
was  taken  away  to  some  friends,  ^^^th  whom  I  stayed  for 
two  days.  I  returned  to  my  home  for  the  funeral. 
Mv  mother  ^^^ished  to  burv  her  darling  beside  her  father 
in  the  cemetery  of  Ochta,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Neva. 
As  the  bridge  which  now  connects  the  banks  did  not 
then  exist,  we  had  to  make  a  long  detour.  We  drove  in 
a  landau,  with  the  httle  coffin  between  us.  We  all 
wept,  caressing  the  poor  Uttle  white,  flower-decked  coffin, 
and  recalling  the  baby's  pretty  saWngs.  After  a  short 
ser\4ce  in  the  church,  we  passed  to  the  burial-ground. 
How  well  I  remember  that  radiant  May  day  I  All  the 
plants  were  in  blossom,  the  birds  were  singing  in  the 
branches  of  the  old  trees,  and  the  htanies  of  the  priest 
and  the  choir  sounded  melodiously  in  the  poetic  sur- 
roundings. Tears  ran  down  my  father's  cheeks;  he 
supported  his  sobbing  wife,  whose  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
little  coffin  as  it  gradually  disappeared  under  the  earth. 

The  doctors  explained  to  my  parents  that  Alexey's 
death  was  due  to  the  malformation  of  his  skull,  which 
had  prevented  liis  brain  from  expanding.  For  my  part, 
I  have  always  thought  that  AUosha,  who  was  very  like 
my  father,  had  inherited  his  epilepsy.  But  God  was 
good  to  him,  and  took  liim  home  at  the  first  attack. 

During  the  winter  preceding  the  death  of  Alexey,  a 
celebrated  Parisian  fortune-teller  had  visited  Petersburg, 
and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  talk  about  her  predictions 
and  her  clairvovance.     Mv  father,  who  was  interested 


LITTLE   ALEXEY  181 

in  all  occult  manifestations,  went  to  see  her  with  a 
friend,  and  was  surprised  at  the  accuracy  with  which  she 
told  him  of  events  in  his  past  life.  Speaking  of  his 
future,  she  said  :  A  great  misfortune  will  befall  you 
in  the  spring.  Struck  by  these  words,  Dostoyevsky 
repeated  them  to  his  wife.  My  mother,  who  was  super- 
stitious, thought  of  them  a  good  deal  in  March  and 
April,  but,  absorbed  in  her  preparations  for  our  departure, 
she  had  entirely  forgotten  them  in  May.  How  often  my 
parents  recalled  that  prediction  during  the  melancholy 
summer  after  the  death  of  Alexey  ! 


XXI 

"  THE   JOURNAL   OF   THE   WRITER  " 

At  last  all  the  debts  were  paid.  My  father  was  now 
free  to  devote  himself  to  his  art — its  master,  and  not  its 
slave  !  He  could  now  give  his  children  some  pleasures, 
and  afford  a  few  presents  for  his  poor  wife,  who  had 
sacrificed  her  youth  to  enable  him  to  discharge  his 
obligations.  The  first  diamonds  Dostoyevsky  offered 
to  my  mother  were  very  small,  but  his  joy  in  giving  them 
was  great. 

Yet  my  father  had  no  thought  of  enjoying  the  rest 
so  hardly  earned.  Scarcely  was  he  clear  of  debt  than 
he  threw  himself  into  the  public  arena,  and  began  to 
publish  the  Journal  of  the  Writer,^  of  which  he  had  long 
been  dreaming.  Russian  novelists  cannot  devote  them- 
selves exclusively  to  art,  after  the  manner  of  their 
European  confreres  ;  the  moment  always  comes  when 
they  have  to  be  priests,  confessors  and  educationists. 
Our  poor  paralysed  Church  and  our  horrible  schools 
cannot  function  normally,  and  every  really  patriotic 
writer  is  obliged  to  take  over  part  of  their  duties.  After 
his  return  from  abroad,  Dostoyevsky  saw  with  alarm 
how  swiftly  unhappy  Russia  was  rolling  towards  the 
abyss  in  which  she  now  lies,  thirty-five  years  after  his 
death.  He  had  just  spent  three  years  in  Italy  and 
Germany,  in  the  great  flowering  time  of  their  patriotism. 
In  Petersburg  he  found  only  malcontents,  who  hated 
their  native  land.  The  unhappy  Russian  intellectuals, 
educated   in   our  cosmopolitan   schools,   had   only   one 

1  He  also  published  under  this  title  his  articles  for  The  Citizen. 

182 


'THE   JOURNAL   OF   THE   WRITER'    183 

ideal :  to  transform  our  interesting  and  original  Russia, 
a  land  full  of  genius  and  promise,  into  a  grotesque 
caricature  of  Europe.  This  state  of  mind  was  the  more 
dangerous  because  our  masses  continued  to  be  strongly 
patriotic  admirers  of  their  own  country,  proud  of  their 
nationality  and  contemptuous  of  Europe.  Dostoyevsky, 
who  knew  both  worlds — that  of  our  intellectuals  and 
that  of  our  peasantry — recognised  the  strength  of  the 
one  and  the  weakness  of  the  other.  He  realised  that  the 
intellectuals  only  existed  by  virtue  of  the  Tsars;  that 
on  the  day  when  they,  in  their  blindness,  pulled  down 
the  throne,  the  people  would  take  the  opportunity  of 
vengeance  on  the  bare,^  whom  they  despised  and  hated 
for  their  atheism  and  cosmopolitanism.  Dostoyevsky' s 
prophetic  spirit  foresaw  all  the  horrors  of  the  Russian 
Revolution. 

When  he  began  the  publication  of  the  Journal  of  the 
Writer,  Dostoyevsky  hoped  to  reunite  this  handful  of 
wrong-headed  intellectuals  with  the  great  popular  masses 
by  awakening  in  them  the  sentiments  of  patriotism  and 
religion.^  His  ardent  voice  was  not  lost  in  the  wilderness ; 
many  Russians  saw  the  danger  of  this  moral  abyss  which 
separated  our  peasants  from  our  intellectuals  and  tried 
to  fill  it  in.  The  fathers  were  the  first  to  respond  to 
Dostoyevsky' s  appeal.  They  came  to  see  him,  consulted 
him  as  to  the  education  of  their  children,  and  wrote  to 
him  from  the  depths  of  the  provinces,  asking  for  advice. 
These  conscientious  fathers  belonged  to  all  classes  of 
Russian  society.  Some  were  humble  folks  of  the  lower 
middle  classes,  who  had  deprived  themselves  to  give 

*  The  name  the  Russian  masses  give  to  nobles  and  intellectuals. 

2  In  his  Journal  of  1876  Dostoyevsky  said  :  "  The  cure  for  our 
intellectual  malady  lies  in  our  union  with  the  people.  I  began 
my  Journal  of  the  Writer  in  order  to  speak  of  this  remedy  as  often 
as  possible."  Thus  my  father  returned  to  the  propagation  of 
the  same  idea  he  had  formerly  preached  in  the  Vremya,  with  my 
uncle  Mihail's  help. 


184  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

their  children  a  good  education,  and  who  saw  with 
terror  that  they  were  becoming  atheists  and  enemies  of 
Russia.  At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  there  was  the 
Grand  Duke  Constantine  Nicolaievitch,  who  begged  my 
father  to  exercise  his  influence  on  his  young  sons, 
Constantine  and  Dmitri.  He  was  an  intelligent  man,  of 
wide  European  culture;  he  wished  to  see  his  sons 
patriots  and  Christians.  My  father's  affection  for  the 
young  princes  lasted  till  his  death ;  he  was  fond  of  both, 
but  especially  of  the  Grand  Duke  Constantine,  in  whom 
he  divined  the  future  poet.^  After  the  fathers  came  the 
sons.  No  sooner  did  Dostoyevsky  begin  to  speak  of 
patriotism  and  religion  than  the  boy  and  girl  students 
of  Petersburg  flocked  to  him,  forgetting  their  former 
grievances  against  him.  Poor  Russian  youth  !  Is  there 
any  other  in  the  world  so  abnormal,  so  crippled  ?  Whereas 
in  Europe  parents  try  to  evoke  patriotism  in  the  hearts 
of  their  children,  and  to  make  them  good  Frenchmen, 
good  Englishmen,  good  Italians,  Russian  parents  make 
their  children  the  enemies  of  their  fatherland.  From 
their  earliest  years  our  little  Russians  hear  their  fathers 
insulting  the  Tsar,  repeating  scandalous  stories  about 
his  family,  laughing  at  priests  and  religion,  and  talking 
of  our  beloved  Russia  as  of  an  offence  against  humanity. 
When  at  a  later  period  our  children  go  to  school,  they 
find  their  teachers  professing  the  same  hatred  of  their 
own  country;  whereas  in  other  countries  schoolmasters 
endeavour  to  cultivate  patriotism  in  the  hearts  of  young 
citizens,  Russian  professors  teach  our  students  to  hate 
our  Orthodox  Church,  the  monarchy,  our  national  flag, 
and  all  our  laws  and  institutions.  They  inculcate 
admiration  of  the  Internationale,  which,  according  to 
them,  will  one  day  bring  justice  to  Russia.     They  talk 

^  Later  on,  the  Grand  Duke  Constantine  published  some 
charming  poems  and  some  dramas  under  th^  initials  K.  R. 
(Konstantin  Romanov). 


*THE    JOURNAL  OF  THE  WRITER'   185 

to  their  pupils,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  of  that  ideal 
nation  which  has  neither  fatherland  nor  religion,  which 
speaks  all  languages  equally  badly,  and  whose  leaders, 
the  future  great  men  of  Russia,  are  being  educated  in 
the  cafes  of  Paris,  Geneva  and  Zurich  !  Alas  !  it  was 
in  vain  that  our  Russian  students  waved  the  red  flag 
in  the  streets  of  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  and  yelled 
the  war-songs  of  the  Internationale  !  Despair  was  in 
their  hearts;  death  chilled  their  souls  and  urged  them 
to  suicide.  Can  there  be  any  happiness  for  those  who 
hate  their  fatherland?  These  poor  young  men  and 
maidens  came  to  my  father  weeping  and  sobbing  and 
opened  their  hearts  to  him.  Dosto^'evsky  received  them 
as  if  they  had  been  his  sons  and  daughters,  sympathised 
with  all  their  sorrows,  patiently  answered  all  their 
artless  questions  as  to  the  life  beyond  the  grave.  Our 
students  are  nothing  but  "  children  of  a  larger  growth," 
and  when  they  encounter  a  man  who  commands  their 
respect,  they  listen  to  him  as  a  master,  and  carry  out 
his  instructions  to  the  letter.  My  father  sacrificed  his 
art  to  the  publication  of  the  Journal  of  the  Writer^  but 
these  years  were  certainly  not  lost  for  Russia. 

The  Russian  girl-students  in  particular  were  warm 
admirers  of  Dostoyevsky,  for  he  always  treated  them  with 
respect,  and  never  gave  them  the  kind  of  Oriental  advice 
which  many  of  our  writers  lavish  on  young  girls  : 
"  What  is  the  good  of  reading  and  studying?  Marry 
early,  and  have  as  many  children  as  possible."  Dos- 
toyevsky never  preached  celibacy  to  them;  but  he 
told  them  that  they  should  marry  for  love,  and  that 
meanwhile  they  ought  to  study,  read,  and  think,  so  that 
later  they  might  be  enlightened  mothers,  capable  of 
giving  their  children  a  European  education.  "  I  expect 
much  from  the  Russian  woman,"  he  often  said  in  his 
Journal.  He  realised  that  the  Slav  woman  has  a 
stronger  character  than  the  Slav  man,  that  she  can 


186  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

work  harder  and  bear  misfortune  more  stoically.  He 
hoped  that  later,  when  the  Russian  woman  was  really 
emancipated  (for  so  far,  though  she  had  pushed  open  the 
doors  of  her  harem,  she  had  not  emerged  from  it),  she 
would  play  a  great  part  in  her  country.  It  may  be  said 
of  Dostoyevsky  that  he  was  the  first  Russian  feminist. 

The  students  now  renewed  their  invitation  to  my 
father  to  read  his  work  to  them  at  their  literary  gather- 
ings. By  this  time  the  mortal  disease  to  which  he  was 
to  succumb  had  already  declared  itself.  He  was  suffering 
from  catarrh  of  the  respiratory  organs,  and  reading 
aloud  fatigued  him  greatly.  But  he  never  refused  to 
attend  these  meetings;  he  knew  what  an  influence 
well-chosen  literature  may  have  on  young  minds.  He 
liked  especially  to  read  them  the  monologue  of  Marme- 
ladov,  a  poor  drunkard,  who  from  the  depths  into  which 
he  has  fallen  always  looks  up  to  God,  hoping  humbly 
for  pardon.  The  miserable  creature  dreams  that  at 
the  Last  Judgment  God,  after  rewarding  the  good  and 
faithful,  will  remember  him.  Humble  and  contrite, 
hiding  behind  others,  he  waits  with  downcast  eyes  for 
the  Lord  to  say  a  word  of  pity  to  him.  All  the  religious 
philosophy  of  our  childlike  people  is  contained  in  this 
chapter  of  Crime  and  Punishment. 

Dostoyevsky  soon  became  a  fashionable  reader. 
He  read  admirably,  and  could  always  touch  the  hearts 
of  his  listeners.  The  public  applauded  him  enthusiastic- 
ally and  recalled  him  again  and  again.  My  father 
thanked  them  smilingly,  but  he  had  no  illusions  concern- 
ing his  audience.  "  They  applaud  me  but  they  don't 
understand  me,"  he  said  sadly  to  his  collaborators  at 
these  literary  evenings.  He  was  right.  Our  intel- 
lectuals felt  instinctively  that  he  knew  the  truth,  but 
they  were  incapable  of  changing  their  own  mentality. 
The  Russian  people  had  been  so  strong  that  they  had 
endured  three  centuries  of  tyranny  without  losing  their 


'THE   JOURNAL   OF  THE   WRITER'   187 

dignity.  Our  intellectuals  were  so  weak  that  they  had 
kept  up  a  semblance  of  tyranny  long  after  the  emancipa- 
tion of  the  peasants.  Their  petty  pride  forbade  them  to 
share  the  ideas  and  traditions  of  the  people.  Unable  to 
forget  that  their  fathers  had  lorded  it  as  masters  of  the 
serfs,  they  continued  to  treat  the  free  peasants  as  slaves, 
trying  to  impose  on  them  the  Utopias  they  found  in 
European  literature.  Just  as  my  grandfather  failed 
to  understand  the  Russian  people,  and  was  killed  by 
them,  so  our  intellectual  society  lived  in  space,  suspended 
between  Europe  and  Russia,  and  was  cruelly  punished 
by  the  revolution. 

The  favour  of  the  students  which  Dostoyevsky  now 
enjoyed  again  brought  about  an  absurd,  though  not 
illogical,  incident.  One  day  when  my  mother  was  out, 
the  maid  announced  that  a  lady  had  called,  but  had 
refused  to  give  her  name.  Dostoyevsky  was  accustomed 
to  receive  unknown  visitors,  who  came  to  unburden 
themselves  to  him,  and  he  told  the  maid  to  show  the 
lady  in.  A  figure  dressed  in  black  and  thickly  veiled 
entered  and  sat  down  without  uttering  a  word.  My 
father  looked  at  her  in  astonishment. 

"  To  what  do  I  owe  the  honour  of  this  visit?  "  he 
asked. 

The  lady  replied  by  throwing  back  her  veil  and  gazing 
at  him  with  a  tragic  air.  My  father  frowned.  He 
disliked  tragedy. 

"Will  you  tell  me  your  name.  Madam?"  he  said 
drily. 

"What!  You  don't  know  me?"  exclaimed  the 
visitor  in  the  tone  of  an  offended  queen. 

"  No,  I  do  not  know  you.  Why  will  you  not  tell  me 
your  name?  " 

"He  does  not  know  me!"  sighed  the  lady.  My 
father  lost  patience. 

"  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  mystery?  "  he  cried. 


188  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

"  Please  tell  me  the  reason  of  your  visit.  I  am  very- 
much  occupied  at  present,  and  have  no  time  to  waste." 

The  unknown  rose,  pulled  down  her  veil  and  left  the 
room.  Dostoyevsky  followed  her,  much  perplexed. 
She  opened  the  front  door,  and  ran  hurriedly  down  the 
stairs.  My  father  stood  in  the  anteroom  deep  in  thought. 
A  distant  memory  began  to  dawn  upon  his  mind.  Where 
had  he  seen  that  tragic  air  ?  Where  had  he  heard  that 
melodramatic  voice?  "  Good  Heavens,"  he  said  at  last, 
"  it  was  she — it  was  Pauline  !  " 

Just  then  my  mother  returned,  and  Dostoyevsky 
dolefully  described  the  visit  of  his  former  mistress. 

"  What  have  I  done ! "  he  repeated.  "  I  have 
offended  her  mortally.  She  is  so  vain.  She  will  never 
forgive  me  for  not  having  recognised  her.  Pauline  will 
know  how  dear  the  children  must  be  to  me.  She  is 
capable  of  killing  them.  Don't  let  them  go  out  of  the 
house  !  " 

"  But  how  was  it  you  did  not  recognise  her?  "  asked 
my  mother.     "  Is  she  so  much  changed?  " 

"  No.  Now  I  think  of  it,  I  see  that  she  has  changed 
very  little.  But  you  see,  Pauline  had  passed  from  my 
mind  altogether;   she  had  ceased  to  exist  for  me." 

The  brain  of  an  epileptic  is  abnormal.  He  retains 
only  facts  that  have  impressed  him  in  some  way.    Pauline 

N was  probably  one  of  those  pretty  women  whom 

men  love  when  they  are  with  them,  but  forget  as  soon 
as  they  are  out  of  sight. ^ 

1  When  she  was  past  fifty,  Pauline  N married  a  student 

of  twenty,  a  great  admirer  of  my  father's.  The  young  enthusiast, 
who  afterwards  became  a  distinguished  author  and  journalist, 
was  inconsolable  because  he  had  never  known  Dostoyevsky,  and 
he  determined  at  least  to  marry  one  whom  his  favourite  writer 
had  loved.  It  may  easily  be  imagined  how  this  extraordinary 
marriage  ended. 


XXII 

DOSTOYEVSKY   IN   HIS    HOME 

The  Russian  students  are  not  very  orderly  in  their 
habits.  They  interfered  with  my  father's  work  by 
coming  to  see  him  at  all  hours  of  the  day,  and  thus 
Dostoyevsky,  who  never  refused  to  receive  them,  was 
obliged  to  sit  up  at  night  writing.  Even  before  this, 
when  he  had  any  important  chapters  on  hand,  he 
preferred  working  at  them  when  every  one  around  him 
was  asleep.  This  nocturnal  toil  now  became  a  fixed 
habit.  He  would  write  until  four  or  five  in  the  morning, 
and  would  not  get  up  till  eleven  o'clock.  He  slept  on 
a  sofa  in  his  study.  This  was  then  the  fashion  in  Russia, 
and  our  furniture-dealers  used  to  stock  Turkish  sofas 
with  a  deep  drawer,  in  which  the  pillows,  sheets  and 
blankets  were  hidden  during  the  day.  Thus  the  bed- 
room could  be  transformed  into  a  study  or  drawing- 
room  in  a  few  minutes.  On  the  wall  over  the  sofa 
there  was  a  large  and  beautiful  photograph  of  the 
Sistine  Madonna,  which  had  been  given  to  my  father 
by  friends  who  knew  how  he  loved  the  picture.  His 
first  glance  when  he  woke  fell  upon  the  sweet  face  of 
this  Madonna,  whom  he  considered  the  ideal  of  woman- 
hood. 

When  he  rose,  my  father  first  did  some  gymnastic 
exercises;  then  he  went  to  wash  in  his  dressing-room. 
He  made  very  thorough  ablutions,  using  a  great  deal 
of  water,  soap  and  eau  de  Cologne.  He  had  a  perfect 
passion  for  cleanliness,  though  this  is  not  a  charac- 
teristically Russian  virtue.     It  did  not  make  its  appear- 

189 


190  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

ance  in  Russia  before  the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.^  Even  in  our  own  days,  it  was  not  uncommon 
to  see  authentic  old  princesses  with  their  nails  in  deep 
mourning.  Dostoyevsky's  nails  were  never  in  mourning. 
However  busy  he  was  he  always  found  time  to  perform 
his  manicure  carefully.  It  was  his  habit  to  sing  while 
he  was  washing.  His  dressing-room  was  next  to  our 
nursery,  and  every  morning  I  used  to  hear  him  singing 
the  same  little  song  in  a  low  voice  : 

"  Wake  her  not  at  early  dawn  ! 
Sweetly  she  sleeps  in  the  morn  ! 
Morning  breathes  upon  her  breast, 
Touches  her  cheeks  with  rose." 

My  father  then  went  back  to  his  room  and  finished 
dressing.  I  never  saw  him  in  dressing-gown  and  slippers, 
which  Russians  habitually  wear  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  day.  From  early  morning  he  was  always  carefully 
dressed  and  shod,  wearing  a  fine  white  shirt,  with  a 
starched  collar. ^  He  always  wore  good  clothes;  even 
when  he  was  poor,  he  had  them  made  by  the  best  tailor 
in  the  town.  He  took  great  care  of  his  clothes,  always 
brushed  them  himself,  and  had  the  secret  of  keeping 
them  fresh  for  a  very  long  time.  If  he  happened  to 
spill  a  drop  of  grease  on  them  when  moving  his  candle- 
sticks, he  at  once  took  off  his  coat  and  asked  the  maid 
to  remove  the  spot.  "  Stains  offend  me,"  he  would 
say;  "I  cannot  work  when  I  know  they  are  there. 
I  think  of  them  all  the  time,  instead  of  concentrating 
on  my  writing."  When  he  had  finished  dressing  and 
said  his  prayers,  Dostoyevsky  would  go  into  the  dining- 
room  to  drink  his  tea.  It  was  then  we  used  to  go  and 
wish  him  good-morning,  and  chatter  to  him  about  our 

^  Our  grandmothers  used  to  tell  us  how  in  their  youth  yoimg 
girls  who  were  going  to  a  ball  would  send  their  servants  to  ask 
their  mothers  if  they  should  wash  their  necks  for  a  low,  or  only 
a  slight  decolletage. 

^  At  this  period  only  working  men  wore  coloured  shirts. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   IN   HIS   HOME      191 

childish  affairs.     He  liked  to  pour  out  his  tea  himself, 
and  always  drank  it  very  strong.     He  would  drink  two 
glasses  of  it,  and  carry  away  a  third  to  his  study,  where 
he  sipped  it  as  he  wrote.     While  he  was  breakfasting 
the  maid  cleaned  and  aired  his  room.     There  was  very 
little  furniture  in  it,  and  what  there  was,  was  always 
ranged  along  the  walls,  and  had  to  be  kept  in  place. 
When  several  friends  came  at  the  same  time  to  see  my 
father,  and  displaced  his  chairs,  he  always  put  them 
back  in  their  places  himself  after  the  visitors  had  left. 
His  writing-table  was  also  very  neat.     The  newspapers, 
the  cigarette-box,  the  letters  he   received,  the    books 
he  consulted,  all  had  to  be  in  their  places.     The  slightest 
untidiness   irritated   him.     Knowing   what   importance 
he  attached  to  this  meticulous  order,  my  mother  went 
every  morning  to  see  that  her  husband's  writing-table 
was  properly  arranged.     She  would  then  take  up  her 
station  beside  it,   and  lay  out  her  pencils  and  note- 
books on  a  small  round  table.     When  he  had  finished 
his  breakfast  my  father  returned  to  his  room,  and  at 
once  began  to  dictate  to  her  the  chapters  he  had  com- 
posed the  night  before.     My  mother  took  them  down 
in  shorthand  and  transcribed  them.     Dostoyevsky  cor- 
rected these  transcriptions,  often  adding  fresh  details ; 
my  mother  copied  them  out  again  and  sent  them  to 
the  printers.     In  this  manner  she  saved  her  husband 
an  immense  amount  of  work.     He  would  not,  perhaps, 
have  written   so   many  novels   if  his   wife   had  never 
learnt    stenography.     My    mother's    handwriting    was 
very    beautiful;     my    father's    was    less    regular,    but 
more  elegant.     I  called  it  "  Gothic  writing,"  because 
all  his  manuscripts  were  adorned  with  Gothic  windows, 
delicately    drawn    with    pen    and    ink.     Dostoyevsky 
traced  them  mechanically  as  he  pondered  on  his  work; 
it  seems  as  if  his  soul  had  craved  for  these  Gothic  lines, 
which   he  had  admired  so  much  in  the  cathedrals  of 


192  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Milan  and  Cologne.  Sometimes  he  would  sketch  heads 
and  profiles  on  his  manuscripts,  all  very  interesting  and 
characteristic. 1 

When  dictating  his  works  to  my  mother,  Dostoyevsky 
would  sometimes  stop  and  ask  her  opinion.  My  mother 
was  careful  not  to  criticise.  The  malicious  criticisms 
in  the  newspapers  were  sufficiently  wounding  to  her 
husband,  and  she  was  anxious  not  to  add  weight  to 
them.  Still,  fearing  that  praise  might  become  mono- 
tonous, she  ventured  on  certain  slight  objections.  If 
the  heroine  were  dressed  in  blue,  my  mother  was  all 
for  pink;  if  there  were  a  cupboard  on  the  left,  she 
preferred  to  have  it  on  the  right;  she  would  change 
the  shape  of  the  hero's  hat,  and  sometimes  cut  off  his 
beard.  Dostoyevsky  always  made  the  suggested  modi- 
fications eagerly,  in  the  ingenuous  behef  that  it  was  to 
please  his  wife.  He  saw  through  her  devices  no  more 
clearly  than  he  had  seen  through  those  of  the  Russian 
convicts  in  Siberia  when,  to  distract  his  thoughts,  they 
would  talk  politics  to  him,  and  question  him  on  the  life 
in  European  capitals.  Dostoyevsky  was  so  honest  that 
it  never  occurred  to  him  that  any  one  could  wish  to 
deceive  him.  He  himself  never  said  anything  untrue 
except  on  one  day  in  the  year — the  first  of  April. 
"  April  fool  "  was  a  tradition,  and  my  father  loved 
traditions.  One  spring  morning  he  came  out  of  his 
bedroom  with  a  face  of  consternation.  "  Do  you  know 
what  has  happened  to  me  in  the  night  ?  "  he  said  to 
my  mother  as  he  entered  the  dining-room.  "  A  rat 
got  into  my  bed.  I  strangled  it.  .  .  .  Please  tell  the 
maid  to  go  and  take  it  away.  I  can't  go  back  into  my 
room  while  the  rat  is  there.  It  horrifies  me  !  "  and  he 
hid  his  face  in  his  hands.  My  mother  called  the  maid 
and  went  with  her  into  the  master's  room.  My  brother 
and  I   followed;    we   had   never  seen   a  rat,   and  we 

1  Drawing  was  very  carefully  taught  at  the  Engineers'  School. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   IN  HIS   HOME      193 

wondered  what  it  would  be  like.  The  maid  shook  the 
sheets,  pillows  and  blankets — then  lifted  up  the  carpet. 
Nothing !  The  corpse  of  the  rat  had  disappeared. 
"But  where  did  you  throw  it?"  asked  my  mother, 
returning  to  the  dining-room,  where  my  father  was 
quietly  drinking  his  tea.  He  began  to  laugh.  "  April 
fool !  "  he  cried,  delighted  with  the  success  of  his  trick. 
When  he  had  finished  his  dictation  to  my  mother, 
Dostoyevsky  would  send  for  us,  and  give  us  some 
dainties  for  our  luncheon.  He  was  very  fond  of  such 
delicacies,  and  in  a  drawer  of  his  bookcase  he  kept 
boxes  of  dried  figs,  dates,  nuts,  raisins  and  those  fruit 
pastes  which  are  made  in  Russia.  He  liked  to  eat 
such  things  occasionally  during  the  day,  and  even 
during  the  night.  This  "  dastarhan  "  ^  was,  I  think, 
the  only  Oriental  habit  my  father  had  inherited  from 
his  Russian  ancestors ;  perhaps  his  delicate  constitution 
needed  all  these  sweet  things.  When  we  came  to  his 
study  he  would  give  us  a  large  share  of  his  dainties, 
dividing  it  between  me  and  my  brother.  As  we  grew 
older  he  became  more  severe,  but  he  was  very  tender 
to  us  when  we  were  little.  I  was  a  very  nervous  child, 
and  cried  a  good  deal.  To  cheer  me  up,  my  father 
would  propose  that  I  should  dance  with  him.  The 
furniture  in  the  drawing-room  was  pushed  back,  my 
mother  took  her  son  for  her  partner,  and  we  danced  a 
country  dance.  As  there  was  no  one  to  play  the  piano, 
we  all  sang  a  kind  of  refrain  by  way  of  accompaniment. 
My  mother  would  compliment  her  husband  on  the 
precision  with  which  he  executed  the  complicated  steps 
of  the  country-dance.  "  Ah  1  "  he  would  reply, 
mopping  his  forehead,  "  you  should  have  seen  how  I 
used  to  dance  the  mazurka  in  my  youth."  ^ 

^  "  Dastarhan  "  means  the  refreshment  offered  to  a  guest  in 
the  East. 

2  The  mazurka  is  the  national  dance  of  Poles  and  Lithuanians, 
o 


194  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

About  four  o'clock,  my  father  went  out  for  his  daily- 
walk.  He  always  took  the  same  road,  and,  absorbed 
in  his  thoughts,  never  recognised  the  acquaintances  he 
met  on  the  way.  Sometimes  he  would  pay  a  visit  to 
a  friend,  to  discuss  some  literary  or  political  question 
that  interested  him.  When  he  had  money,  he  would 
buy  a  box  of  bonbons  from  Ballet  (the  best  confectioner 
in  Petersburg),  or  pears  and  grapes  from  one  of  the 
famous  fruiterers.  He  always  chose  the  best,  and  had  a 
great  aversion  from  cheap,  second-class  goods.  He 
would  bring  home  his  purchases  himself,  and  have  them 
served  for  dessert.  At  this  period  it  was  usual  to  dine 
at  six,  and  to  have  tea  at  nine.  Dostoyevsky  devoted 
the  interval  to  reading,  and  did  not  begin  to  work  until 
after  tea,  when  every  one  had  gone  to  bed.  He  used 
to  come  into  our  nursery  to  bid  us  good-night,  give  us 
his  blessing,  and  repeat  with  us  a  short  prayer  to  the 
Virgin  which  his  own  parents  had  taught  him  to  say 
when  he  was  a  child.  He  would  then  kiss  us,  return  to 
his  study,  and  begin  to  work.  He  disliked  lamps,  and 
wrote  by  the  light  of  two  candles.  He  smoked  a  good 
deal  as  he  worked,  and  drank  very  strong  tea.  I  do 
not  think  he  could  have  stayed  awake  for  so  many 
hours  without  these  stimulants. 

The  same  regular,  monotonous  life  continued  at 
Staraja  Russa.  My  father  was  no  longer  able  to  spend 
all  the  summer  with  us;  he  had  to  go  to  Ems  every 
year  for  a  course  of  treatment.  The  waters  there  did 
him  a  great  deal  of  good,  but  he  disliked  being  in 
Germany.  He  counted  the  days  till  his  return  to 
Russia,  and  looked  forward  impatiently  to  the  time 
when  he  should  be  rich  enough  to  take  all  his  family 
abroad  with  him.  He  thought  wistfully  of  us  when 
he  saw  the  little  Germans  enjoying  donkey-rides,  and 
dreamed  of  giving  his  own  children  such  pleasures. 
When  he  returned  to   Staraja  Russa   he   would  often 


DOSTOYEVSKY   IN  HIS   HOME      195 

tell  us  about  the  little  German  donkeys.  There  are  no 
donkeys  in  Russia,  and  this  unknown  animal,  which 
seemed  to  be  so  fond  of  children,  had  a  mysterious 
attraction  for  my  brother  and  me.  We  were  never 
tired  of  questioning  my  father  about  the  moral  and 
physical  attributes  of  the  little  long-eared  beasts. 

My  father  used  to  bring  us  charming  presents  from 
abroad.  These  were  generally  serviceable  and  expensive 
things,  chosen  with  much  taste.  He  brought  my 
mother  a  beautiful  pair  of  opera-glasses,  in  painted 
china,  an  ivory  fan  very  delicately  carved,  some  Chan- 
tilly  lace,  a  black  silk  dress,  daintily  embroidered  linen ; 
for  me  there  would  be  white  piqu6  dresses  for  the 
summer,  and  little  silk  frocks  trimmed  with  lace  for 
the  winter.  Unlike  the  generality  of  parents,  who 
dress  their  little  girls  in  blue  or  pink,  my  father  chose 
pale-green  dresses;  he  was  very  fond  of  this  colour, 
and  often  dressed  the  heroines  of  his  novels  in  it. 

Dostoyevsky  was  very  hospitable,  and  on  family 
festivals  he  loved  to  collect  his  own  relatives  and  my 
mother's  round  his  table.  He  was  always  very  pleasant 
to  them,  talking  of  things  in  which  they  were  interested, 
laughing,  jesting,  and  even  playing  cards,  an  amusement 
he  disliked.  In  spite  of  his  exertions  and  my  mother's 
amiability,  these  gatherings  generally  ended  unplea- 
santly, thanks  to  that  black  sheep,  Paul  Issaieff,  who 
always  expected  an  Invitation  to  such  entertainments. 
He  had  no  idea  how  to  behave  in  society.  Although  he 
was  the  son  of  an  officer  of  good  family,  a  member  of 
the  hereditary  nobility,  had  been  educated  in  the  Corps 
of  Cadets  with  well-bred  boys,  and  had  spent  his  holidays 
in  the  house  of  my  uncle  Mihail,  who  received  all  the 
most  distinguished  writers  of  the  day,  Paul  Issaieff 
conducted  himself  much  as  his  maternal  forefathers 
may  have  done  in  some  oasis  of  the  Sahara;  I  have 
rarely   encountered   such   a   curious   case   of  atavism. 


196  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

Insolent  and  malicious,  he  offended  every  one  by  his 
impertinences.  Our  relations  were  indignant  and  com- 
plained to  my  father.  Dostoyevsky  would  be  angry, 
and  would  show  his  stepson  the  door ;  but,  metaphorically 
speaking,  he  always  came  back  by  the  window.  He 
clung  closer  than  ever  to  his  "  papa,"  continued  to  live 
in  idleness  and  to  depend  upon  him  for  money.  Dos- 
toyevsky's  friends  hated  his  stepson,  and  never  invited 
him  to  their  houses.  Hoping  to  rid  my  father  of  this 
parasite,  they  obtained  excellent  situations  for  him  in 
private  banks.^  Any  sensible  man  would  have  tried  to 
keep  such  situations,  and  provide  for  his  future,  but 
Paul  Issaieff  never  stayed  long  anywhere.  He  treated 
not  only  his  colleagues  but  his  superiors  like  dirt,  was 
always  talking  of  his  step-father,  the  famous  writer, 
whose  friends  were  Grand  Dukes  and  Ministers,  and 
threatening  those  who  displeased  him  with  his  all- 
powerful  vengeance.  At  first  people  laughed  at  his 
megalomania;  when  they  got  tired  of  it,  they  turned 
Paul  Issaieff  out,  and  he  came  back  to  Dostoyevsky 
like  a  bad  penny.  He  was  now  the  father  of  a  numerous 
family.  Faithful  to  the  Mameluke  tradition,  he  in- 
creased the  population  every  year.  He  gave  his  children 
our  names  :  Fyodor,  Alexey,  and  Aimee,  evidently  with 
the  idea  of  prolonging  the  imaginary  relationship,  and 
making  them  as  it  were  the  grandchildren  of  Dostoyev- 
sky. A  parasite  himself,  he  proposed  to  make  them 
parasites  in  their  turn,  but  happily  he  failed  here.  His 
children,  who  were  very  well  brought  up  by  their 
mother,  turned  out  greatly  superior  to  their  father. 
Russia  has  absorbed  them,  and  will  gradually  purge 
them  of  their  "  Mamelukism."  Perhaps  that  African 
blood  which  proved  so  disastrous  to  Paul  Issaieff  and 
his  mother  may  bestow  some  great  gift  on  one  of  their 

1  As  he  had  never  finished  a  course  in  any  Government  school, 
he  could  not  get  a  post  in  a  Government  office. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   IN  HIS   HOME      197 

descendants  and  make  him  a  distinguished  man.  Such 
a  development  is  not  unknown  in  Russia. 

My  mother  always  protested  hotly  against  this 
spurious  relationship.  She  protected  our  blond  Slavo- 
Norman  heads  and  would  not  allow  that  there  was 
anything  in  common  between  them  and  the  yellow  skin 
of  the  unhappy  mulatto.  She  was  right,  for  Russian 
law  recognises  no  kinship  as  between  stepfather  and 
stepson.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Orthodox  Church 
admits  a  spiritual  relation,  and  it  is  possible  that 
Dostoyevsky,  who  was  always  a  faithful  servant  of  our 
Church,  accepted  her  ruling  on  this  point.^  But,  in 
any  case,  he  considered  that  the  connection  would  die 
with  him,  for  he  never  exhorted  us  to  treat  Paul  Issaieff 
as  our  brother.  We  were  forbidden  to  call  him  by  his 
nickname,  or  to  address  him  as  "  thou."  But  my 
brother  Fyodor  and  I  found  him  strangely  attractive. 
He  was  never  kind  or  amiable  to  us,  but  he  amused  us 
immensely.  When  he  came  to  see  his  stepfather  we 
would  creep  into  the  study,  and,  hiding  behind  the 
arm-chairs,  we  would  note  with  delight  his  extraordinary 
gestures  and  strange  attitudes,  and  drink  in  his  ex- 
travagant conversation.  To  us  he  was  a  kind  of  Punch, 
representing  the  grotesque  comedy  that  delights  children 
of  a  certain  age. 

But  though  we  laughed  at  Paul  Issaieff,  Dostoyevsky 

^  My  father  thought  himself  responsible  for  his  stepson's 
moral  conduct  more  especially.  Once  when  he  had  been  making 
a  long  stay  abroad,  he  suspected  Paul  Issaieff  of  having  attempted 
a  forgery.  In  a  letter  to  Maikov  he  describes  how  this  had 
distressed  him,  and  how  he  had  prayed  to  God  that  it  might  not 
happen.  He  rejoiced  greatly  to  find  that  he  had  been  mistaken. 
I  do  not,  indeed,  think  that  Paul  Issaieff  had  any  criminal  pro- 
clivities. If  he  had  been  a  rogue,  he  might  easily  have  provided 
for  himself  during  my  father's  lifetime,  for  Dostoyevsky,  always 
absent-minded  and  confiding,  would  sign  any  paper  presented 
to  him  without  troubling  to  see  to  what  it  committed  him. 
Many  others  took  advantage  of  this  disposition,  but  Paul  Issaieff 
was  not  of  the  number.  He  was  idle  all  his  life,  but  honest  after 
his  fashion. 


198  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

never  ridiculed  his  unhappy  stepson.  Whenever  his 
friends  or  relatives  had  treated  Paul  with  contempt,  my 
father  was  full  of  pity  for  him,  and  would  do  all  he  could 
to  comfort  him.  He  would  go  to  his  house,  caress  his 
children,  discuss  their  education  with  Madame  Issaieff, 
and  give  her  good  advice  by  which  she  profited  greatly 
later  on. 

Paul  Issaieff  has  been  dead  many  years.  On  the 
ground  that  he  poisoned  Dostoyevsky's  life,  the  Russian 
intellectuals  would  never  do  anything  for  his  children. 
I  think  myself  that  they  would  have  shown  their  ad- 
miration for  my  father  better  by  a  little  kindness  to 
this  family,  which  was  dear  to  him.  After  all,  Paul 
Issaieff' s  children,  who  were  all  very  young  when 
Dostoyevsky  died,  never  did  him  any  harm.  On  the 
contrary,  they  had  to  suffer  for  their  father's  perversity, 
and  thus,  as  the  victims  of  his  defective  education,  had 
a  claim  to  help  and  sympathy. 


XXIII 

DOSTOYEVSKY   AS   A   FATHEU 

It  was  very  likely  the  spectacle  of  his  grotesque 
stepson  which  caused  Dostoyevsky  to  think  seriously 
of  his  duties  to  my  brother  and  myself.  Having  failed 
in  the  one  instance,  he  was  the  more  anxious  to  succeed 
in  the  other.  He  began  our  education  very  early,  at 
an  age  when  most  children  are  still  in  the  nursery. 
Perhaps  he  knew  that  his  disease  was  mortal,  and  that  he 
had  little  time  in  which  to  sow  the  good  seed.  He 
adopted  to  this  end  the  same  method  his  father  had 
chosen  before  him  :  reading  the  works  of  great  authors. 
In  my  grandfather's  home  the  children  were  made  to 
read  aloud  in  turn,  but  Dostoyevsky  was  obliged  to 
read  to  us,  for  we  could  scarcely  do  so  at  all  when  our 
literary  seances  began.  The  first  of  these  impressed 
itself  indelibly  on  my  memory.  One  autumn  evening 
at  Staraja  Russa,  when  the  rain  was  coming  down  in 
torrents  and  the  yellow  leaves  lay  thickly  on  the  ground, 
my  father  announced  that  he  was  going  to  read  us 
Schiller's  Robbers.  I  was  then  seven  years  old  and  my 
brother  was  just  six.  My  mother  came  to  listen  to 
this  first  reading.  Dostoyevsky  read  with  fervour, 
stopping  every  now  and  then  to  explain  some  difficult 
expression.  We  listened  open-mouthed ;  this  Germanic 
drama  seemed  very  strange  to  our  childish  minds.  What 
were  we  to  think  of  that  fantastic  Germany,  that  far-off 
country  to  which  my  father  went  reluctantly  every  year 
by  his  doctor's  orders,  and  where  the  good  children  rode 
about  on  little  donkeys  with  long,  long  ears  ?     Alas  ! 

199 


200  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

there  were  no  donkeys  in  The  Robbers.  But  there  was 
a  very  unpleasant  father,  who  was  always  quarrelling 
with  his  sons;  also  a  young  girl  who  tried  to  reconcile 
them,  and  who  was  always  crying.  "  No  wonder,  poor 
girl  I  "  I  thought,  as  I  listened  to  my  father's  passionate 
declamation.  "  It  must  be  dreadful  to  live  with  people 
who  quarrel  all  day.  And  yet  they  ought  to  have  been 
happy  living  in  Germany,  where  there  are  so  many  little 
donkeys.  Why,  then,  were  they  so  miserable,  and  why 
did  they  quarrel  all  the  time?  Germans  must  have 
very  bad  tempers.  .  .  ." 

If  I  could  not  understand  the  works  of  Schiller  at  the 
age  of  seven,  I  understood  perfectly  that  this  fantastic 
drama  interested  my  father  immensely,  and  that  I  must 
pretend  to  be  interested  in  it  too  in  order  to  please  him. 
Cunning  as  most  little  girls  are,  I  put  on  intelligent  airs, 
nodded  my  head  approvingly,  and  appeared  highly 
appreciative  of  Schiller's  genius.  Feeling  that  sleep  was 
getting  the  better  of  me  as  the  brothers  Moor  plunged 
more  desperately  into  crime,  I  tried  with  all  my  might 
to  keep  my  childish  eyes  open ;  my  brother  Fyodor  went 
to  sleep  unconcernedly.  .  .  .  Seeing  such  an  audience 
my  father  stopped,  laughed,  and  began  to  reproach 
himself.  ..."  They  can't  understand,  they  are  too 
young,"  he  said  sadly  to  his  wife.  Poor  father  !  He 
had  hoped  to  experience  afresh  with  us  the  emotion 
Schiller's  dramas  had  once  aroused  in  him ;  he  forgot  that 
he  must  have  been  at  least  double  our  age  when  he  had 
first  enjoyed  them. 

Dostoyevsky  waited  a  few  months  before  he  resumed 
the  literary  evenings.  This  time  he  chose  the  old 
Russian  legends  which  our  rustic  bards  relate  in  the 
villages  at  evening  gatherings.  These  unlettered  Homers 
have  extraordinary  memories  and  can  recite  thousands 
of  verses  without  hesitation.  They  repeat  them 
rhythmically,  with  much   taste  and  expression;    they 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AS   A   FATHER      201 

are  indeed  poets,  and  often  add  passages  to  the  poems 
they  recite.  The  chief  subject  of  the  legends  is  the  hfe 
of  the  knights  of  Prince  Vladimir,  that  Russian  Arthur, 
who  loved  to  assemble  his  warriors  round  him  at  his 
table.  Our  people,  who  have  no  idea  of  history,  inter- 
mingle with  these  ninth-  and  tenth-century  legends  the 
more  ancient  myths  of  pagan  times,  and  the  knights  of 
Vladimir's  Slavo-Norman  Court  have  to  encounter 
giants  and  dwarfs,  etc.  The  legends  are  written  partly 
in  Russian,  partly  in  the  early  Slav  language,  which  adds 
to  their  poetry.  ^  They  suited  our  childish  imaginations 
better  than  Schiller's  tragedies.  We  listened  entranced, 
weeping  over  the  misfortunes  of  the  errant  knights,  and 
rejoicing  at  their  victories.  Dostoyevsky  smiled  at  our 
emotion,  and  was  himself  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
popular  poets  of  our  race.  Passing  on  from  the  legends, 
he  read  us  Pushkin's  stories,  written  in  admirable 
Russian;  Lermontov's  Caucasian  tales;  and  Gogol's 
Tar  as  Bulba,  a  magnificent  romance  of  Cossack  life 
in  ancient  Ukrainia.  Having  thus  formed  our  literary 
taste  a  little,  he  began  to  recite  to  us  the  poems  of  Pushkin 
and  of  Alexis  Tolstoy,  two  of  his  favourite  poets. 
Dostoyevsky  recited  their  verses  admirably.  There  was 
one  poem  which  always  brought  tears  to  his  eyes — 
Pushkin's  Poor  Knight,  a  media3val  legend.  It  is  the 
story  of  a  dreamer,  a  deeply  religious  Don  Quixote,  who 
wanders  all  his  hfe  in  Europe  and  the  East,  upholding 
the  creed  of  the  Gospels.  He  has  a  vision  in  the  course 
of  his  wanderings ;  in  a  moment  of  supreme  exaltation, 
he  sees  the  Holy  Virgin  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross.  He  lets 
down  "  a  steel  curtain  "  over  his  face,  and,  faithful  to 
the  Virgin,  will  never  look  again  on  any  woman.     In 

1  The  Orthodox  liturgy,  the  Gospel  and  the  prayers  are  said 
in  Old  Slav  in  our  churches,  so  that  in  Russia  every  one  knows 
the  ancient  tongue  more  or  less,  even  children,  who  with  us  begin 
to  attend  Mass  at  the  age  of  two. 


202  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

The  Idiot  Dostoyevsky  describes  how  one  of  his  heroines 
recited  this  poem  :    "A  spasm  of  joy  passed  over  her 
face."     This   was   just   what   happened   to   my   father 
when  he  read  it;    his  face  was  irradiated,   his  voice 
trembled,  his  eyes  filled  with  tears.     It  was  the  story  of 
his  own  soul.     He,  too,  was  a  poor  knight,  without  fear 
and  without  reproach,  who  fought  all  his  life  for  great 
ideas.     He,  too,  had  a  beatific  vision;  it  was  not  the 
mediaeval  Virgin  who  appeared  to  him,  but  Christ,  Who 
came  to  him  in  his  prison,  and  called  him  to  follow  Him. 
Although  Dostoyevsky  attached  great  importance  to 
reading,   he  did  not  neglect    the    theatre.     In  Russia 
parents  take  their  children  very  often  to  the  Ballet. 
Dostoyevsky  did  not  care  for  the  Ballet,  and  preferred 
to  take  us  to  the  Opera.     Strange  to  say,  he  always 
chose  the  same,  Russian  and  Ludmilla,  which  Glinka 
composed  on  a  poem  by  Pushkin.     My  father  seems  to 
have   wished   to   engrave   the   legend   on   our   childish 
hearts.     It   is   indeed   very   curious;     it   is   a   political 
allegory,  prefiguring  the  destiny  of  the  Slav  nations. 
Ludmilla,  the  daughter  of  Prince  Vladimir,  represents 
the  Western  Slavs.     Tchernomur,  an  Oriental  magician, 
a  hideous  dwarf  with  a  long  beard,   who   personifies 
Turkey,  arrives  at  Kiev  when  a  great  festival  is  in  progress, 
plunges  every  one  into  a  magic  sleep,  and  carries  off 
the  fair  Ludmilla  to  his  castle.     Two  knights,  Russian 
(Russia)  and   Farlaff  (Austria),  pursue   the  dwarf,  and 
after  many  adventures  arrive  at  Tchernomur's  castle. 
Russian    challenges    him;      Tchernomur    accepts    the 
challenge,  but,  before  the  combat,  again  plunges  Ludmilla 
into  a  magic  sleep.     While  they  are  fighting,  the  cunning 
Farlaff  seizes  the  sleeping  maiden  and  brings  her  back 
to  Kiev  to  Prince  Vladimir,  who  had  promised  her  hand 
to  the  knight  who  should  rescue  her.     Farlaff  tries  in 
vain  to  wake  Ludmilla;  she  does  not  respond  to  his 
advances.     Russian,  having  slain  Tchernomur,  takes  his 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AS   A   FATHER      203 

magic  ring.  Returning  to  Kiev,  he  puts  it  on  Ludmilla's 
finger,  and  she  at  once  awakes,  throws  herself  into  his 
arms,  calls  him  her  dear  betrothed,  and  turns  disdainfully 
away  from  Farlaff.  Seeing  that  Ludmilla  will  have 
nothing  to  say  to  him,  Farlaff  leaves  Kiev  ignominiously. 

This  fine  opera,  very  splendidly  put  on  the  stage, 
delights  children.  My  brother  and  I  admired  it  greatly, 
though  we  were  unfaithful  to  it  on  one  occasion.  On  a 
certain  evening  when  we  arrived  at  the  theatre  we 
learned  that  one  of  the  singers  had  been  taken  ill,  and 
that  Russian  and  Ludmilla  could  not  be  performed. 
The  Bronze  Horse,  a  very  popular  comic  opera,  had  been 
substituted.  My  father  was  vexed  and  proposed  to  go 
home.  We  protested  and  began  to  cry ;  he  sympathised 
with  our  disappointment  and  allowed  us  to  stay  for  this 
Chinese  or  Japanese  spectacle.  We  were  enchanted. 
There  was  so  much  noise,  so  many  little  bells  jangling, 
and  the  great  bronze  horse,  which  figured  in  every  act, 
struck  our  childish  imaginations.  Dostoyevsky  was  not 
very  well  pleased  at  our  admiration.  He  evidently  did 
not  wish  us  to  be  dazzled  by  the  wonders  of  the  Far 
East.  He  wanted  us  to  be  faithful  to  his  beloved 
Ludmilla.  .  .  . 

When  Dostoyevsky  went  to  Ems,  or  was  too  busy 
to  read  to  us  himself,  he  begged  my  mother  to  read  us 
the  works  of  Walter  Scott,  and  of  Dickens,  "  that  great 
Christian,"  as  he  calls  him  in  the  Journal  of  the  Writer. 
During  meals,  he  would  question  us  concerning  our 
impressions,  and  evoke  episodes  in  the  novels.  He, 
who  forgot  his  wife's  name  and  the  face  of  his  mistress, 
could  remember  all  the  English  names  of  the  characters  of 
Dickens  and  Scott  which  had  fired  his  youthful  imagina- 
tion, and  spoke  of  them  as  if  they  were  his  intimate 
friends. 

My  father  was  very  proud  of  my  love  of  reading. 
I  learned  to  read  in  a  few  weeks,  and  I  devoured  all 


204  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

the  books  I  could  lay  hands  on.  My  mother  protested 
against  this  inordinate  reading,  which  was,  of  course, 
very  bad  for  a  little  nervous  girl.  Dostoyevsky,  however, 
was  indulgent  to  it,  seeing  in  it  a  reflection  of  his  own 
passion  for  books.  He  chose  historical  novels  and  the 
sentimental  tales  of  Karamzin  for  me  from  his  book- 
shelves, discussed  them  with  me  and  explained  the  things 
I  had  not  understood.  I  got  into  the  habit  of  keeping 
him  company  while  he  breakfasted,  and  this  was  the 
happiest  hour  of  my  day.  Thus  our  literary  conversa- 
tions began,  but,  alas  !   they  did  not  continue  long. 

The  first  book  my  father  gave  me  was  the  History  of 
Russia,  by  Karamzin,  beautifully  illustrated.  He 
explained  the  pictures,  which  represented  the  arrival  of 
Rurik  at  Kiev,  the  struggles  of  his  son  Igor  against  the 
nomad  tribes  who  surrounded  what  was  then  the  small 
Slav  nation  on  every  side,  Vladimir  introducing  the 
Christian  religion  into  his  principality,  Jaroslav  pro- 
mulgating the  first  European  laws,  and  other  descendants 
of  Rurik,  who  founded  Muscovy,  defending  the  infant 
Great  Russia  against  the  invading  Tatars.  The  Slavo- 
Norman  princes  became  my  favourite  heroes.  I  heard 
their  songs  and  war-cries  as  in  a  dream.  My  favourite 
heroine  was  Rogneda,  daughter  of  the  Norman  prince 
Rogvolod ;  I  liked  to  act  her  part  in  our  childish  plays. 
Later,  when  I  began  to  travel  in  Europe,  I  sought  the 
traces  of  my  dear  Normans  everywhere.  I  was  surprised 
to  find  Europeans  talking  always  of  Latin  and  Germanic 
culture,  and  forgetting  that  of  the  Normans.  At  the 
time  when  Europe  was  plunged  in  mediaeval  barbarism, 
the  Normans  were  already  protecting  liberty  of  con- 
science, and  allowing  the  practice  of  all  religions  in  their 
realms.  Instead  of  worshipping  power  and  riches  they 
reverenced  poets  and  men  of  learning,  invited  them  to 
their  courts,  and  even  shared  their  labours.  Thus  in 
Sicily  the  Norman  prince  Roger  II  helped  the  learned 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AS   A   FATHER      205 

Arab  Edrizy  to  write  the  first  geography  under  the  artless 
title  of  The  Joy  of  Him  Who  Loves  to  Travel.  The 
civilisation  of  the  Normans  was  so  advanced  for  their 
period  that  it  could  not  find  admittance  in  barbarous 
Europe ;  it  could  only  subsist  in  small  forgotten  countries 
such  as  Lithuania  and  Sicily.  And  yet  this  fine  civilisa- 
tion is  not  dead ;  it  lives  on  in  souls  of  Norman  descent, 
and  manifests  itself  from  time  to  time  in  some  great 
poet  or  writer. 

One  thing  which  struck  me  as  strange  at  a  later  date, 
when  I  began  to  analyse  this  period  of  my  life,  was  the 
fact  that  my  father  never  gave  me  any  children's  books. 
Robinson  Crusoe  was  the  only  work  of  this  kind  I  read, 
and  this  my  mother  gave  me.  I  suppose  Dostoyevsky 
knew  nothing  about  children's  books.  In  his  youth 
they  did  not  exist  as  yet  in  Russia,  and  he  must  have 
begun  to  read  the  works  of  the  great  writers  at  the  age 
of  eight  or  nine.  Another  thing,  still  more  curious, 
strikes  me  when  I  recall  our  conversations.  Dostoyevsky, 
who  spoke  to  me  with  so  much  pleasure  of  literature, 
never  uttered  a  single  word  to  me  about  his  childhood. 
My  mother  told  me  of  the  smallest  details  in  her  life  as 
a  little  girl,  described  her  earliest  impressions,  and  her 
affection  for  her  brother,  but  I  cannot  recall  a  single 
detail  of  my  father's  childhood.  He  maintained  the 
same  reserve  as  his  father  before  him,  who  would  never 
tell  his  sons  anything  about  their  grandfather  or  their 
Ukrainian  uncles. 

Dostoyevsky  superintended  our  religious  education, 
and  liked  to  worship  in  company  with  his  family.  In 
Russia  we  communicate  once  a  year,  and  we  prepare  for 
this  solemn  event  by  a  week  of  prayer.  My  father 
performed  his  religious  duties  reverently,  fasted,  went 
to  church  twice  a  day,  and  laid  aside  all  literary  work. 
He  loved  our  beautiful  Holy  Week  services,  especially 
the  Resurrection  Mass  with  its  joyful  hymns.    Children 


206  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

do  not  attend  this  mass,  which  begins  at  midnight,  and 
ends  between  two  and  three  in  the  morning.  But  my 
father  wislied  me  to  be  present  at  this  wonderful 
ceremony  when  I  was  barely  nine  years  old.  He 
placed  me  on  a  chair,  that  I  might  be  able  to  follow  it, 
and  with  his  arms  around  me,  explained  the  meaning 
of  the  holy  rites. 


XXIV 

DOSTOYEVSKY  AND   TURGENEV 

Before  passing  on  to  my  father's  last  years,  I  should 
like  to  say  a  few  words  about  his  relations  with 
Turgenev  and  Tolstoy.  In  talking  to  Dostoyevsky's 
European  admirers,  I  have  always  noticed  that  they 
were  specially  interested  in  these  relations. 

My  father's  acquaintance  with  Turgenev  began  when 
they  were  both  young,  and  both  full  of  ambition,  as 
young  people  beginning  life  generally  are.  They  were 
as  yet  unknown  to  the  Russian  public ;  their  talent  had 
hardly  developed.  They  frequented  the  same  literary 
salons,  listened  to  the  same  critics,  and  worshipped  the 
same  masters — their  favourite  poets  and  novelists. 
Turgenev  attracted  my  father  greatly;  Dostoyevsky 
admired  him  as  one  student  admires  another  who  is 
handsomer  and  more  distinguished  than  himself,  is  a 
greater  favourite  with  women,  and  seems  to  him  an 
ideal  man.  However,  as  Dostoyevsky  learned  to  know 
Turgenev  better,  his  admiration  gradually  changed  to 
aversion.  Later  he  called  Turgenev  "  that  poseur.'" 
This  opinion  of  Dostoyevsky's  was  shared  by  most  of 
his  literary  colleagues.  Later,  when  I  myself  questioned 
the  older  Russian  writers  about  their  relations  with 
Turgenev,  I  always  noted  the  somewhat  contemptuous 
tone  they  adopted  in  speaking  of  him,  which  disappeared 
when  they  talked  of  Tolstoy.  Turgenev  had  deserved 
their  contempt  to  some  extent.  He  was  one  of  those 
men  who  cannot  be  natural,  who  always  want  to  pass 
themselves  off  as  something  they  are  not.     In  his  youth 

207 


208  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

he  posed  as  an  aristocrat,  a  pose  which  had  no  sort  of 
justification.  The  Russian  aristocracy  is  very  restricted ; 
it  is  rather  a  coterie  than  a  class.  It  is  composed  of  the 
few  descendants  of  the  ancient  Russian  and  Ukrainian 
boyards,  some  chiefs  of  Tatar  tribes  assimilated  by 
Russia,  a  few  barons  of  the  Baltic  Provinces  and  a  few 
Polish  counts  and  princes.  All  these  people  are  brought 
up  in  the  same  manner,  know  each  other,  are  nearly  all 
related,  and  have  intermarried  with  the  European 
aristocracies.  They  give  magnificent  entertainments 
to  foreign  ambassadors,  and  enhance  the  prestige  of  the 
Russian  Court.  They  have  very  little  influence  on  the 
politics  of  their  country,  which,  since  the  second  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  have  been  gradually  passing  into 
the  hands  of  our  hereditary  nobility.  This  is  perfectly 
distinct  from  the  aristocracy,  and  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  feudal  nobility  of  Europe.  I  have  already 
explained  its  origin  in  describing  the  Lithuanian 
Schliahta.  This  union,  primarily  a  martial  one  in 
Poland  and  Lithuania,  was  in  Russia  transformed  into 
an  agrarian  union  of  rural  proprietors.  Catherine  II 
protected  them,  desiring  to  create  a  sort  of  Third  Estate 
in  Russia.  The  landed  proprietors  in  each  province 
combined  and  chose  a  Marshal  of  the  nobility  to  super- 
intend their  affairs.  He  did  this  gratis,  sometimes 
ruining  himself  by  giving  balls  and  sumptuous  dinners 
to  the  nobles  who  had  elected  him.  Nevertheless,  the 
post  of  Marshal  of  the  nobility  was  always  greatly  in 
request,  for  it  conferred  many  privileges.  The  Emperor 
always  bestowed  the  rank  of  Gentleman  or  Chamberlain 
on  the  elected  Marshal,  and  invited  him  to  all  Court 
festivities.  The  Marshal  of  the  nobility  was  quite 
independent  of  Ministers,  and  might  ask  for  an  audience 
of  the  Emperor  at  any  time  to  speak  of  the  affairs  of 
the  nobles  in  his  province.  Our  Tsars  always  patronised 
these  unions,  and  even  attempted  to  represent  them- 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TLTRGENEV     209 

selves  as  hereditary  nobles.  Thus  Nicolas  I  declared 
that  he  was  "  the  first  noble  of  the  Empire."  The 
Grand  Dukes  bought  estates  in  the  provinces,  fraternised 
with  the  members  of  the  union,  and  signed  telegrams 
addressed  to  the  Marshal,  "  Hereditary  Noble"  instead 
of  "  Grand  Duke."  The  Tsar  readily  accepted  invita- 
tions from  the  nobles,  and  when  he  and  his  family 
lunched,  dined  or  took  tea  at  one  of  the  provincial 
Assemblies,  tried  to  ignore  his  Imperial  dignity  and  to 
play  the  part  of  the  noble,  Romanov.  I  have  been 
present  at  some  of  these  Imperial  visits,  and  I  was 
surprised  at  the  absence  of  etiquette  and  the  patri- 
archal simplicity  that  obtained.  The  Russian  aristocrats 
in  their  turn  caused  their  names  to  be  inscribed  in  the 
registers  of  the  nobility,  and  manceuvred  for  election 
to  the  office  of  Marshal.  They  were  by  no  means 
always  successful.  Very  often  at  the  elections  a  prince 
would  be  rejected,  and  a  noble,  more  obscure,  but  more 
highly  esteemed,  would  be  chosen.  The  utmost  equality 
reigned  in  the  Assemblies ;  the  Russian  nobility  had  no 
quarterings,  and  a  recently  ennobled  member  had  the 
same  rights  as  those  belonging  to  the  noblest  families. 
The  unions  became  very  rich  in  time,  for  unmarried  or 
childless  members  often  bequeathed  their  fortunes, 
their  estates  and  their  houses  to  the  nobility  of  their 
district.  After  the  emancipation  of  the  serfs  most  of  the 
landowners  were  ruined  and  had  to  sell  their  properties. 
The  unions  of  the  nobles  were  wise  enough  not  to  forsake 
them;  thanks  to  their  wealth,  they  were  able  to  grant 
pensions  to  widows,  and  allowances  for  the  education  of 
orphans.  Russian  parents  are  so  improvident,  and  think 
so  little  of  the  future  of  their  children,  that  without  the 
union  the  latter,  lacking  the  means  of  education,  would 
have  gradually  lapsed  into  the  state  of  the  illiterate 
moujiks.  By  helping  them,  the  unions  maintained 
hereditary  culture,  the  only  culture  which  makes  a  man 
p 


210  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

really  civilised.  We  hereditary  nobles  are  very  proud 
of  our  union,  for  it  has  spent  millions  in  order  to  intro- 
duce European  culture  into  Russia.  Better  still,  in 
introducing  this  it  never  dissociated  itself  from  the 
Orthodox  Church,  and  was  always  distinguished  for 
its  patriotism.  This  was  why  the  Russian  nobility 
became  strong  and  influential,  and  soon  all-powerful. 

Turgenev  belonged  to  this  hereditary  nobility,^  as 
did  Dostoyevsky  and  Tolstoy,  and  most  of  the  writers 
of  this  period.  With  the  exception  of  Gontsharov,  who 
was  the  son  of  a  merchant,  and  Belinsky,  who  belonged 
to  the  lower  middle  classes,  all  my  father's  literary 
contemporaries — Grigorovitch,  Plesch^ev,  Nekrassov, 
Soltikov,  Danilevsky — were  hereditary  nobles.  Some  of 
them  belonged  to  a  much  older  nobility  than  Turgenev — 
the  poet  Maikov,  for  instance.  This  close  friend  of  my 
father's  came  of  such  an  ancient  stock  that  he  had  even 
the  honour  of  reckoning  a  saint  among  his  ancestors — the 
famous  Nil  of  Sorsk,  canonised  by  the  Orthodox  Church. ^ 
Of  course,  Turgenev' s  pretensions  to  a  higher  degree 
of  nobility  irritated  his  literary  colleagues  and  seemed 
ridiculous  to  them.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Russian 
aristocrats  smiled  at  his  claims,  and  refused  to  treat 
him  as  a  great  personage  when  he  appeared  in  their 
salons.  He  was  mortified,  and  took  his  revenge  on  the 
Russian  aristocracy  by  describing  in  his  novel.  Smoke, 
certain  well-born  adventurers,  such  as  are  to  be  found  in 

^  The  distinctive  term  "  hereditary  "  is  generally  used  in  this 
connection,  for  there  is  in  our  country  another  nobility,  known 
as  "  personal."  It  was  introduced  into  Russia  at  the  time  when 
persons  not  belonging  to  the  hereditary  nobility  could  be  con- 
demned to  suffer  corporal  punishment.  The  title  of  "  personal 
nobility  "  was  conferred  on  citizens  who  had  received  the  higher 
education  of  the  universities,  in  order  to  secure  their  immunity 
from  such  punishments.  The  "  personal  "  nobles  could  not  be 
registered  with  the  hereditary  nobles,  and  enjoyed  none  of  their 
privileges.  After  the  abolition  of  corporal  punishment,  the 
distinction  lost  all  meaning. 

2  The  Orthodox  Church  does  not  canonise  saints  until  three  or 
four  centuries  after  their  death. 


DOSTOYEVSKY  AND   TURGEXEV     211 

all  countries,  but  whom  he  represents  as  typical  great 
Russian  nobles. 

Turgenev's  megalomania,  which  is  not  uncommon 
in  Russia,  would  not  have  prevented  my  father  from 
remaining  his  friend.  Snobbery  is  a  malady  more 
insidious  than  influenza.  If  we  were  to  ostracise  all  the 
snobs  we  know,  we  should  hve  in  comparative  solitude. 
Dostoyevsky  would  have  pardoned  Turgenev's  weak- 
ness, as  we  forgive  the  lapses  of  those  we  love ;  yet  my 
father  broke  with  him,  and  ceased  to  frequent  literary 
salons  some  time  before  his  arrest  and  his  condemnation 
to  death.  To  understand  the  situation  as  between 
Dostoyevsky  and  his  friends,  the  younger  writers,  we 
must  go  back  a  little, 

Petersburg  was  never  loved  by  the  Russians.  This 
artificial  capital  which  Peter  the  Great  created  on 
the  marshes,  cold,  damp,  exposed  to  all  the  "vsinds  of  the 
north,  and  plunged  in  darkness  for  three-quarters  of  the 
year,  was  obnoxious  to  my  compatriots,  who  preferred 
the  peaceful,  sun-bathed  cities  of  central  Russia.  Seeing 
that  the  Russians  would  not  come  and  settle  in  Peters- 
burg, our  Emperors  were  obUged  to  people  the  new 
capital  \\'ith  Swedes  and  Germans  of  the  Baltic  Provinces. 
In  the  eighteenth  century  Petersburg  was  three-quarters 
German,  and  German  society  led  the  fashion  there. 
Towards  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 
Schillerian  tone  reigned  in  Germany,  and  passed  thence 
into  Russia.  Every  one  became  IjTical;  men  swore 
eternal  friendship  to  each  other ;  women  fell  into  swoons 
at  the  noble  sentiments  they  uttered,  young  girls  em- 
braced each  other  passionately,  and  -^Tote  each  other 
long  letters  full  of  lofty  sentiments.  PoUteness  became 
so  exaggerated  that  when  ladies  received  visitors  they 
had  to  smile  the  whole  time,  and  laugh  at  every  word 
they  uttered.  This  tone  of  exalted  sentimentaUty  is 
to  be  found  in  all  the  novels  of  the  period. 


212  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

When  Moscow  was  burnt  in  1812,  many  Moscowites 
fled  to  Petersburg  and  settled  there.  Other  families 
followed  their  example,  and  Peter  the  Great' <^  favourite 
capital  soon  became  Russian.  When  my  father  entered 
the  Engineers'  School,  Russian  society  was  giving  the 
tone  in  Petersburg.  My  compatriots,  who  are  simple  and 
sincere,  thought  the  Schillerian  pose  ridiculous,  and  they 
were  not  altogether  wrong;  but  unfortunately,  in  their 
reaction  against  this  over-sentimental  attitude,  they  fell 
into  the  opposite  extreme  of  brutality.  They  declared 
that  a  self-respecting  man  should  always  speak  the 
truth,  and,  under  the  guise  of  frankness,  they  became 
impudent.  My  grandmother,  a  Swede,  brought  up  her 
children  in  the  Schillerian  tradition,  and  my  mother  has 
often  told  me  how  difficult  her  life  became  when  she 
grew  up  and  began  to  visit  in  Russian  families.  "  It 
was  no  use  to  be  polite  and  amiable,"  she  said:  "  I 
received  insults  on  every  side.  I  could  not  even  protest, 
for  I  should  have  been  considered  ridiculous.  I  could 
only  retort  by  similar  rudenesses."  By  degrees  my 
compatriots  began  to  enjoy  these  incivilities,  and  con- 
tests in  insolence  became  the  fashion.  In  drawing- 
rooms,  at  receptions,  and  at  dinner-parties  two  men  or 
two  women  would  begin  to  attack  each  other  with  gross 
impertinence,'and  as  they  warmed  to  this  vulgar  display 
the  spectators  would  listen  with  interest,  taking  sides, 
now  for  one  and  now  for  the  other.  At  bottom  of  these 
conversational  cock-fights  we  find  the  Mongolian  coarse- 
ness which  lurks  in  the  heart  of  every  Russian,  and 
emerges  when  he  is  angry,  surprised,  or  ill.  "  Scratch 
the  Russian  and  you  will  find  the  Tatar,"  say  the 
French,  who  must  often  have  noticed  how  a  Russian 
of  European  education  and  distinguished  manners 
became  coarse  and  brutal  as  a  moujik  in  a  moment  of 
anger. 

Dostoyevsky,  brought  up  by  a  father  who  was  half 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TURGENEV     213 

Ukrainian,  half  Lithuanian,  knew  nothing  of  this  Tatar 
brutahty.  If  we  may  judge  by  the  lyrical  letters  he 
wrote  to  his  brother  Mihail,  and  the  extremely  respectful 
epistles  addressed  to  his  father,  the  Schillerian  tone  must 
have  reigned  in  my  grandfather's  family.  Russian 
coarseness  amazed  Dostoyevsky  when  he  first  came  in 
contact  with  it  at  the  Engineers'  School,  and  was, 
perhaps,  the  principal  cause  of  his  contempt  for  his 
schoolfellows.  It  astonished  him  still  more  when  he 
encountered  it  in  the  literary  salons  of  the  period.  As 
long  as  he  remained  obscure,  he  had  not  to  suffer  from 
it.  He  held  his  peace,  and  observed  people ;  Grigorovitch, 
with  whom  he  lived,  had  been  brought  up  in  the  French 
tradition,  and  was  always  well-mannered.^  But  when 
the  unexpected  success  of  his  first  novel  excited  the 
jealousy  of  the  younger  writers,  they  avenged  themselves 
by  calumnies  and  insults.  My  father  could  not  defend 
himself  effectually,  for  he  could  not  be  insolent.  He  was 
nervous  and  excitable,  as  the  children  of  drunkards 
generally  are.  Losing  his  self-control,  Dostoyevsky 
said  absurd  things,  and  excited  the  laughter  of  his 
unfeeling  companions.  Turgenev  in  particular  delighted 
in  tormenting  him.  He  was  of  Tatar  origin,  and  showed 
himself  to  be  even  more  cruel  and  malicious  than  the 
others.  Belinsky,  who  was  a  compassionate  soul, 
sought  in  vain  to  defend  my  father,  reproved  his  rivals, 
and  tried  to  make  them  listen  to  reason.  Turgenev 
seemed  to  find  a  special  pleasure  in  inflicting  suffering 
on  his  sensitive  and  nervous  confrere.  One  evening  in 
Panaev's  house,  Turgenev  began  to  tell  my  father  that 
he  had  just  made  the  acquaintance  of  a  conceited 
provincial,  who  considered  himself  a  genius,  and 
elaborated  a  caricature  of  Dostoyevsky.     Those  present 

^  Baron  Wrangel,  with  whom  my  father  lived  in  Siberia,  had 
been  brought  up  in  the  German  manner,  that  is  to  say  in  the 
Schillerian  tone,  which  he  retained  till  the  end  of  his  life. 


214  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

listened  with  amusement;  they  expected  one  of  those 
cock-fights  which,  as  I  have  said,  were  so  much  in  favour 
at  the  time.  They  applauded  Turgenev  and  awaited 
Dostoyevsky's  counter-attack  with  curiosity.  My  father 
was  not  a  game-cock,  but  a  gentleman;  his  sense  of 
honour  was  more  highly  developed  than  that  of  the 
Russians  who  surrounded  him.  Finding  himself  thus 
grossly  insulted,  he  turned  pale,  rose,  and  left  the  house 
without  saying  good-bye  to  any  one.^  The  young 
writers  were  much  astonished.  They  sought  out  my 
father,  sent  him  invitations,  wrote  to  him — but  all 
in  vain.  Dostoyev^sky  refused  to  frequent  the  literary 
salons.  The  young  writers  were  alarmed.  They 
were  only  starting  on  their  literary  career  and  had 
as  yet  no  position.  Dostoyevsky  was  the  favourite 
of  the  public,  and  his  young  confreres  feared  that  the 
public  would  take  his  part  and  would  accuse  them  of 
jealousy  and  malice.  They  had  recourse  to  calumny — 
a  favourite  device  of  the  Russians,  or  rather  of  all 
societies  still  in  their  infancy.  They  went  about  clamour- 
ing against  Dostoyevsky  as  a  pretentious  upstart,  who 
thought  himself  superior  to  every  one,  and  was  a  mass 
of  selfishness  and  ill-humour.  My  father  allowed  them 
to  say  what  they  would.  He  was  indifferent  to  public 
opinion,  and  all  his  life  he  scorned  to  refute  calumnies. 
When  he  cut  himself  off  from  Belinsky's  advice  and  the 
literary  conversation  of  other  writers,  which  was  so 
necessary  to  him,  he  consoled  himself  with  the  thought 
that  honour  and  dignity  are  a  man's  best  friends,  and 
can  take  the  place  of  all  others.  But  it  is  very  difficult 
for  a  young  man  to  turn  hermit;  the  youthful  mind 
requires  the  interchange  of  ideas  for  its  development. 
Having  renounced  literary  society,  Dostoyevsky  sought 

*  "  The  Lithuanian  Is  very  reticent,  one  may  indeed  say 
modest.  But  when  he  encounters  insolence,  he  becomes  extremely 
haughty,"  says  Vidunas. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TURGENEV     215 

that  of  other  intellectuals,  and  unfortunately  became 
involved  with  Petrachevsky. 

The  aggressive  tone  of  the  conversational  cock-fights 
I  have  described  have  disappeared  now,  at  least  in  good 
society.  My  compatriots  travelled  much  in  Europe  in 
the  second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  observed  the 
politeness  that  reigned  there,  and  introduced  it  into 
Russia.  Yet  in  1878,  in  the  Journal  of  the  Writer,  my 
father  confessed  to  his  readers  that  when  he  was  going 
on  a  journey  he  always  took  plenty  of  books  and  news- 
papers, in  order  to  avoid  conversation  with  his  travelling 
companions.  He  declared  that  such  conversations 
always  ended  in  gratuitous  insults,  uttered  merely  to 
wound  the  interlocutor. 

My  father's  uncompromising  attitude  made  a  great 
impression  on  the  Russian  writers.  They  realised  that 
his  sense  of  honour  was  more  highly  developed  than  that 
of  his  contemporaries,  and  that  consequently  they  could 
not  talk  to  him  in  the  disrespectful  manner  usually 
adopted  by  writers  to  each  other  at  that  period.  When 
he  returned  from  Siberia,  his  new  friends,  the  collaborators 
of  the  Vremya,  treated  him  with  consideration.  My 
father,  who  asked  nothing  better  than  to  live  on  friendly 
terms  with  his  colleagues,  but  who  would  not  sacrifice 
his  dignity  on  the  altar  of  friendship,  became  their 
sincere  friend,  and  remained  faithful  to  them  until  his 
death.  Turgenev  imitated  the  other  writers,  and  was 
polite,  and  even  amiable  with  my  father,  i  They  met 
very  rarely.  While  my  father  was  undergoing  his 
sentence   in  Siberia,  Turgenev   had  the  misfortune  to 

^  Turgenev  was  particularly  agreeable  to  my  father  at  the 
time  when  the  brothers  Dostoyevsky  were  publishing  their  paper. 
During  one  of  his  sojourns  in  Petersburg  he  gave  a  grand  dinner 
to  all  the  staff  of  the  Vremya.  Turgenev  always  managed  his 
money  affairs  well,  made  friends  witli  the  rich  publishers  and 
insisted  on  good  terms  for  himself,  whereas  Dostoyevsky,  who 
was  obliged  to  ask  his  publishers  for  sums  in  advance,  had  all 
his  life  to  take  what  they  chose  to  give  him, 


216  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

fall  in  love  with  a  celebrated  European  singer.  He 
followed  her  abroad  and  was  at  her  feet  all  his  life.  He 
settled  in  Paris,  and  only  came  to  Russia  for  the  sporting 
season.  His  unhappy  passion  prevented  him  from 
marrying  and  having  a  family.  In  his  novels  he  is  fond 
of  depicting  the  type  of  the  weak-minded  Slav,  who 
becomes  the  slave  of  an  evil  woman  and  suffers,  but  is 
unable  to  throw  off  her  yoke.  Turgenev's  character 
became  embittered;  misfortune  developed  his  faults 
instead  of  correcting  them.  Seeing  that  the  Russian 
aristocracy  would  not  recognise  him  as  the  great  noble 
he  imagined  himself  to  be,  Turgenev  changed  his  pose, 
and  adopted  the  role  of  the  European.  He  exaggerated 
the  Paris  fashions,  took  up  all  the  manias  of  the  French 
old  beaus,  and  became  more  ridiculous  than  ever.  He 
spoke  disdainfully  of  Russia,  and  declared  that  if  she 
were  to  disappear  altogether,  civilisation  would  not  suffer 
in  any  appreciable  degree.  This  new  pose  disgusted 
my  father;  he  thought  that  if  the  first  was  ridiculous, 
the  second  was  dangerous.  Turgenev  had,  by  adopting 
these  opinions,  become  the  leader  of  the  Zapadniki 
(Occidentals),  who  had  hitherto  only  had  mediocrities 
in  their  ranks,  and  his  incontestable  talents  gave  them  a 
certain  prestige.  Every  time  my  father  met  Turgenev 
abroad,  he  tried  to  make  him  realise  the  wrong  he  was 
doing  to  Russia  by  his  unjust  contempt.  Turgenev 
would  not  listen  to  reason,  and  their  discussions  generally 
ended  in  quarrels.  When  Dostoyevsky  returned  to 
Russia,  after  spending  four  years  in  Europe,  he  became 
one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Slavophils,  the  party  opposed 
to  the  Occidentals.  Seeing  the  disastrous  influence  the 
Occidentals  were  exercising  upon  the  infant  society  of 
Russia,  Dostoyevsky  began  to  wage  war  upon  them  in 
his  novel,  The  Possessed.  In  order  to  discredit  them  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Russian  public,  he  caricatured  their 
chief    in    his    description    of    the   celebrated    writer 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TURGENEV     217 

Karmazinov,  and  his  stay  in  a  little  Russian  town. 
The  Occidentals  were  indignant,  and  made  a  great  outcry. 
They  thought  it  quite  legitimate  for  Turgenev  to  ridicule 
my  father  and  caricature  the  heroes  of  his  novels,  but 
they  declared  it  to  be  odious  when  Dostoyevsky  adopted 
the  same  attitude  to  Turgenev.  Such  is  justice,  as 
understood  by  the  Russian  intellectuals. 

Although  he  opposed  Turgenev  and  his  political 
ideas,  my  father  was  all  his  life  a  passionate  admirer 
of  his  contemporary's  works.  When  he  speaks  of  them 
in  the  Journal  of  the  Writer,  it  is  in  terms  of  the  warmest 
appreciation.  Turgenev,  on  the  other  hand,  would 
never  admit  that  Dostoyevsky  had  any  talent,  and  all 
his  life  ridiculed  him  and  his  works.  He  acted  like  a 
true  Mongol,  maliciously  and  vindictively. 


XXV 

DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY 

Dostoyevsky's  relations  with  Tolstoy  were  very 
different.  These  two  great  Russian  writers  had  a  real 
sympathy  and  a  real  admiration  for  each  other.  They 
had  a  common  friend,  the  philosopher  Nicolas  Strahoff, 
who  lived  at  Petersburg  in  the  winter  and  in  the  summer 
spent  some  months  in  the  Crimea  with  his  comrade 
Damlevsky,  stopping  at  Moscow  or  at  Yasnaia  Poliana  ^ 
to  see  Tolstoy.  My  father  was  very  fond  of  Strahoff, 
and  attached  great  importance  to  his  criticism.  Tolstoy 
also  liked  him  and  corresponded  with  him.  "  I  have 
just  read  the  Memoirs  of  the  House  of  the  Dead  again," 
he  wrote.  "  What  a  magnificent  book  I  When  you  see 
Dostoyevsky  tell  him  that  I  love  him."  Strahoff  gave 
my  father  great  pleasure  by  showing  him  this  letter. 
Later,  when  a  new  book  by  Tolstoy  appeared,  Dosto- 
yevsky in  his  turn  said  to  Strahoff  :  "  Tell  Tolstoy  I  am 
delighted  with  his  novel."  These  two  great  writers 
complimented  each  other  through  Strahoff,  and  their 
compliments  were  sincere.  Tolstoy  admired  Dosto- 
yevsky's works  as  much  as  my  father  admired  his.  And 
yet  they  never  met,  and  never  even  expressed  any  desire 
to  meet.  Why  was  this?  I  believe  they  were  afraid 
they  would  quarrel  violently  if  they  ever  came  together. 
They  had  a  sincere  admiration  for  each  other's  gifts, 
but  their  respective  ideas  and  outlook  upon  life  were 
radically  opposed. 

Dostoyevsky    loved    Russia    passionately,    but    this 

^  The  name  of  an  estate  belonging  to  Tolstoy,  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Tula. 

218 


DOSTOYEVSKY  AND   TOLSTOY      219 

passion  did  not  blind  him.  He  saw  his  compatriots' 
faults  clearly  and  did  not  share  their  conceptions  of  life. 
Centuries  of  European  culture  separated  my  father  from 
the  Russians.  A  Lithuanian,  he  loved  them  as  a  man 
loves  his  younger  brothers,  but  he  realised  how  young 
they  still  were,  and  how  much  they  needed  to  study  and 
to  work.  European  critics  often  make  the  mistake  of 
Identifying  Dostoyevsky  with  the  heroes  of  his  works.^ 
My  father  was  a  great  writer,  who  painted  his  com- 
patriots from  Nature.  A  moral  chaos  reigns  in  his 
novels,  because  such  a  chaos  reigned  in  our  Russia,  a 
state  still  youthful  and  anarchical;  but  this  chaos  had 
no  counterpart  in  Dostoyevsky's  private  life.  His 
heroines  forsake  their  husbands  and  run  after  their  lovers ; 
but  he  wept  like  a  child  on  hearing  of  the  dishonour  of 
his  niece,  and  refused  to  receive  her  thenceforth.  His 
heroes  lead  lives  of  debauchery  and  throw  their  money 
about  recklessly;  he  himself  worked  like  a  slave  for 
years  in  order  to  pay  the  debts  of  his  brother,  which  he 
accepted  as  debts  of  honour  of  his  own.  His  heroes  are 
bad  husbands  and  bad  fathers;  he  was  a  faithful  hus- 
band, conscientiously  doing  his  duty  towards  his  children, 
and  superintending  their  education  as  very  few  Russian 
parents  do.  His  heroes  are  unmindful  of  their  civic 
duties ;  he  was  a  fervent  patriot,  a  reverent  son  of  the 
Church,  a  Slav  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the  people  of  his 
race.  Dostoyevsky  lived  like  a  European,  looked  upon 
Europe  as  his  second  country,  and  advised  all  those  who 
consulted  him  to  study  and  acquire  the  culture  which 
most  of  my  compatriots  lack. 

Tolstoy's  attitude  was  altogether  different.  He  loved 
Russia  as  did  Dostoyevsky,  but  he  did  not  criticise  her. 
On  the  contrary  !  He  despised  European  culture  and 
considered  the  ignorance  of  the  moujiks  a  supreme 
wisdom.  He  advised  all  the  intellectuals  who  visited 
^  Russian  critics  never  make  this  mistake. 


220  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

him  to  leave  their  studies,  science  and  arts,  and  to  return 
to  the  state  of  peasants.  He  gave  the  same  advice  to 
his  own  children.  "  I  tell  my  sons  that  they  must 
study,  learn  foreign  languages,  and  become  distinguished 
men,  and  their  father  tells  them  to  leave  their  schools 
and  go  and  work  in  the  fields  with  the  moujiks,^^  said 
Countess  Tolstoy  to  my  mother.  The  prophet  of 
Yasnaia  Poliana  admired  the  faults  of  his  compatriots 
and  shared  their  absurd  puerilities,  their  childish  dreams 
of  primitive  communism.  His  ideal  is  the  Oriental 
ideal  of  the  Russian  masses  :  to  do  nothing,  to  cross 
one's  arms,  and  lie  on  one's  back,  yawning  and  dream- 
ing. An  apostle  of  pacifism,  he  advised  his  disciples  to 
lay  down  their  arms  before  the  enemy,  and  not  to 
struggle  against  wrong  but  to  let  it  invade  the  world, 
leaving  its  overthrow  in  the  hands  of  God.  He  prepared 
the  triumph  of  the  Bolsheviks,  and  asserted  ingenuously 
that  he  was  preaching  Christian  ideas.  He  forgot  that 
Jesus  did  not  remain  in  a  Yasnaia  Poliana,  but  that  He 
went  from  place  to  place,  eating  as  He  journeyed,  sleeping 
little,  appealing  to  all  hearts,  awaking  all  consciences, 
sowing  the  seeds  of  truth  in  every  town  He  entered, 
training  disciples  and  sending  them  to  preach  His  doctrine 
in  other  lands,  fighting  against  evil  to  His  last  breath. 

The  difference  between  my  father's  ideas  and  those  of 
Tolstoy  manifested  itself  very  clearly  during  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War.  Dostoyevsky  in  his  newspaper.  The 
Journal  of  the  Writer ^  demanded  the  liberation  of  the 
Slav  nationalities,  their  independence,  and  the  free 
development  of  their  national  ideal.  He  was  indignant 
when  he  read  how  the  Turks  tortured  the  hapless  Serbs 
and  Bulgarians,  and  he  incited  the  Russians  to  deliver 
these  persecuted  peoples  by  force  of  arms.  He  reiterated 
passionately  that  this  was  the  duty  of  Russia,  that  she 
could  not  abandon  people  of  her  own  race  and  religion. 
Tolstoy,  on  the  other  hand,  thought  Russia  had  nothing 


DOSTOYEVSKY  AND   TOLSTOY      221 

to  do  with  Balkan  affairs,  and  that  she  ought  to  leave 
the  Slavs  to  their  fate.  He  even  asserted  that  the  indig- 
nation of  Russians  at  the  Turkish  atrocities  was  merely  a 
pose,  and  that  a  Russian  was  not  and  could  not  be 
moved  by  descriptions  of  these  cruelties.  He  confessed 
himself  that  he  felt  no  pity.  "  How  is  it  possible  that 
he  should  feel  no  pity  ?  It  is  incomprehensible  to  me  !  " 
wrote  Dostoyevsky  in  The  Journal  of  the  Writer. 
Tolstoy's  hostile  attitude  in  the  midst  of  the  general 
enthusiasm  for  the  Slav  cause  seemed  so  scandalous  to 
his  publisher,  Katkov,  that  he  refused  to  allow  the 
epilogue  to  Anna  Karenina,  in  which  Tolstoy  expounded 
his  anti-Slav  ideas,  to  appear  in  his  paper.  The  epilogue 
was  published  as  a  separate  pamphlet.  As  a  leading 
Slavophil,  Dostoyevsky  thought  it  his  duty  to  protest 
in  his  own  journal  against  Tolstoy's  strange  attitude 
towards  the  unhappy  victims  of  the  Turks.  In  combat- 
ing Tolstoy,  he  did  not  adopt  the  same  method  as  in  his 
conflict  with  Turgenev.  He  had  despised  the  cruel 
comrade  of  his  youth,  and  had  not  spared  him.  But  he 
loved  Tolstoy  and  did  not  wish  to  give  him  pain.  To 
take  the  sting  out  of  his  criticism,  he  exalted  Tolstoy 
to  a  giddy  height,  proclaiming  him  the  greatest  of 
Russian  writers,  and  declaring  that  all  the  rest,  himself 
included,  were  merely  his  pupils. ^ 

Sucli  reverent  criticism  could  not  anger  Tolstoy,  and 
did  not  affect  his  admiration  for  Dostoyevsky.  When 
my  father  died  Tolstoy  wrote  to  Strahoff  :    "  When  I 

1  Dostoyevsky  specially  admired  Tolstoy's  powers  of  descrip- 
tion and  his  style,  but  he  never  looked  upon  him  as  a  prophet. 
He  thought  indeed  that  Tolstoy  did  not  understand  our  people. 
Often  in  talking  to  his  friends  my  father  said  that  Tolstoy  and 
Turgenev  could  only  paint  truthfully  the  life  of  the  hereditary 
nobility,  which,  according  to  him,  was  in  its  decline,  and  would 
soon  be  extinguished.  This  surprised  his  friends  very  much, 
but  Dostoyevsky  was  right,  for  the  Revolution  has  changed  all  the 
conditions  of  Russian  life.  He  looked  upon  Tolstoy  and  Tur- 
genev as  gifted  historical  novelists. 


222  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

heard  of  Dostoyevsky's  death  I  felt  that  I  had  lost  a 
kinsman,  the  closest  and  the  dearest,  and  the  one  of 
whom  I  had  most  need." 

Tolstoy's  European  biographers  generally  describe  him 
as  a  great  aristocrat,  and  contrast  him  'with  Dostoyevsky, 
whom,  I  know  not  why.  they  beheve  to  be  a  plebeian. 
The  better  informed  Russian  biographers  know  that 
both  belonged  to  the  same  union  of  hereditary  nobles. 
I  suppose  it  was  Tolstoy's  title  of  Count  which  misled 
European  writers.  In  Russia  the  title  was  notliing; 
it  was  possible  there  to  meet  titled  people,  bearing 
historic  names,  who  belonged  to  the  middle  classes, 
and  others,  who  had  no  titles,  but  were  members  of  the 
aristocracy.  European  biographers  of  Tolstoy  who  wish 
to  understand  his  position  in  Russia  should  read  the 
history  of  the  Counts  Rostov  in  War  and  Peace.  In  this 
family  Tolstoy  describes  that  of  his  paternal  grand- 
father. Coimt  Ilia  Rostov  lives  in  Moscow,  and  receives 
every  one;  but  when  he  goes  to  Petersburg  with  his 
family  he  knows  no  one  save  an  old  Court  lady,  who  is 
only  able  to  procure  them  a  single  invitation  to  a  ball 
in  the  great  world,  and  even  on  this  occasion  cannot 
introduce  any  partners  to  the  charming  Xataha,  because 
she  knows  no  one  herself.  Count  Rostov  is  very  popular 
with  the  nobles  of  his  own  pro^dnce  who  chose  him  as 
their  Marshal;  but  when  he  goes  to  incite  a  travelling 
aristocrat,  Prince  Volkonsky,  to  dinner,  the  Prince 
receives  him  insolently,  and  refuses  his  invitation.  When 
Countess  Bezuhov  insists  that  Natalia  should  come  to 
her  party,  all  the  Rostov  family  is  much  flattered  by  the 
graciousness  of  the  great  lady.  And  yet  the  Countess 
only  invites  her  to  please  her  brother,  Prince  Kouragin, 
who  is  in  love  with  the  fair  Natasha  and  wants  to  carry 
her  off.  He  is  already  secretly  married,  so  he  cannot 
mam*  her;  but  he  does  not  hesitate  to  compromise  the 
girl,  a  villainy  he  would  never  have  committed  if  she  had 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY      223 

belonged  to  his  own  world,  for  it  would  have  ruined 
his  career.  Evidently,  in  the  eyes  of  a  Russian  aristo- 
crat the  Counts  Rostov  were  hereditary  nobles  of  no 
importance,  whom  they  could  treat  cavalierly.  In  con- 
temporary times,  the  relations  between  the  Russian 
aristocrats  and  the  hereditary  nobles  were  greatly 
modified,  but  in  1812  they  were  very  cruel.  In  War  and 
Peace  Tolstoy  carefully  explained  the  position  occupied 
by  his  grandfather  and  his  father  in  Russia.  But  his 
mother  was  a  Princess  Volkonsky,  a  very  ugly  old  maid, 
who,  unable  to  find  a  husband  in  her  own  world,  had 
married  Count  Nicolai  Tolstoy  for  love.  She  was  a 
provincial,  but  she  must  have  had  relations  in  Peters- 
burg, through  whom  Tolstoy  could  have  gained  admit- 
tance to  the  great  world  of  the  capital  much  more  easily 
than  Turgenev  had  been  able  to  do.  But  he  made  no 
bid  for  such  recognition.  He  was  no  snob,  and  had  all 
that  dignity  and  independence  of  spirit  which  have 
always  characterised  our  Moscow  nobility.  He  made 
an  unambitious  marriage  with  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Bers, 
and  spent  all  his  life  in  Moscow,  receiving  every  one  who 
was  congenial  to  him  without  asking  to  what  class  of 
society  his  visitors  belonged.  Tolstoy  had  no  love  for 
the  aristocrats.  He  shows  his  antipathy  to  them  very 
plainly  in  War  and  Peace,  Anna  Kardnina  and  Resurrec- 
tion. He  contrasts  their  opulent,  luxurious  and  artificial 
existence  with  the  simple,  hospitable  life  of  the  Moscow 
nobihty.  Tolstoy  was  right,  for  indeed  the  latter  were 
very  sympathetic.  Their  houses  were  not  rich,  but  they 
were  always  open  to  their  friends.  The  rooms  were 
small  and  low,  but  there  was  always  a  corner  for  some 
old  relative  or  invalid  friend;  they  had  a  great  many 
children,  but  they  always  managed  to  find  a  place 
among  them  for  some  poor  orphan,  who  received  the 
same  education  and  treatment  as  the  children  of  the 
house.     It  was  in  this  hospitable,  cheerful,  kindly  and 


224  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

simple  atmosphere  that  Tolstoy  was  brought  up,  and 
it  is  this  world  that  he  describes  in  his  novels.  "  Tolstoy 
is  the  historian  and  the  poet  of  the  lesser  Moscow 
nobility,"  wrote  Dostoyevsky  in  his  Journal  of  the 
Writer. 

Tolstoy's  European  biographers,  who  have  blamed  his 
aristocratic  luxury,  are  strangely  ill-informed ;  they  can 
never  have  been  either  to  Moscow  or  to  Yasnaia  Poliana. 
I  remember  one  day  going  with  my  mother  when  we 
were  in  Moscow  to  call  on  Countess  Tolstoy.  I  was 
struck  by  the  poverty  of  her  house ;  not  only  was  there 
no  single  good  piece  of  furniture,  no  single  artistic 
object,  such  as  one  might  find  in  any  Petersburg  home, 
but  there  was  absolutely  nothing  of  the  smallest  value 
of  any  sort.  The  Tolstoys  lived  in  one  of  those  small 
houses  between  courtyard  and  garden  which  are  so 
common  in  Moscow.  Rich  people  build  them  of  stone, 
poor  people  are  content  with  wood.  The  Tolstoy  house 
was  of  wood,  and  was  built  without  any  architectural 
pretensions.  The  rooms  of  these  little  houses  are 
generally  small,  low,  and  ill-lighted.  The  furniture  is 
bought  in  cheap  shops,  as  was  the  case  in  the  Tolstoys' 
home,  or  it  is  made  by  old  workmen  who  were  formerly 
serfs,  as  was  that  I  saw  in  other  houses  in  Moscow. 
The  hangings  are  faded,  the  carpets  threadbare,  the 
walls  are  hung  with  family  portraits,  painted  by  some 
poor  artist,  to  whom  a  commission  was  given  to  save  him 
from  starvation.  The  only  luxury  of  these  houses  con- 
sists of  a  pack  of  dirty,  ill-tempered  old  servants,  who 
show  their  fidelity  by  meddling  in  the  affairs  of  their 
masters  and  speaking  impertinently  to  them,  and  In  a 
couple  of  clumsy  ill-matched  horses,  brought  from  the 
country  in  the  autumn,  and  harnessed  to  some  old- 
fashioned  carriage.  Tolstoy's  "  luxury  "  was  indeed  far 
from  dazzling;  any  prosperous  European  who  has  a 
pretty  villa  and  a  smart  motor-car  lives  more  sumptu- 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY      225 

ously  than  he.  I  do  not  even  know  whether  it  would 
have  been  possible  for  Tolstoy  to  surround  himself  with 
luxuries.  He  owned  a  great  deal  of  land,  but  the  land 
of  central  Russia  does  not  represent  much  wealth.  It 
yields  little  income,  and  absorbs  a  great  deal  of  money. 
He  could  not  sell  it,  for  by  Russian  law,  land  inherited 
from  a  father  must  be  transmitted  to  a  son.  Tolstoy 
had  five  sons;  as  they  grew  up  and  married,  he  was 
obliged  to  divide  his  estates  between  them,  and  it  is 
probable  that  during  the  last  years  of  his  life  he  lived 
on  the  proceeds  of  his  literary  works.  When  Countess 
Tolstoy  came  to  ask  my  mother's  advice  in  the  matter  of 
publishing  editions  of  her  husband's  books,  it  was  in 
no  rapacious  spirit.  She  was  probably  in  pressing  need 
of  money,  and,  like  the  honest  woman  she  was,  she 
wanted  to  work  herself  to  increase  her  income. 

Not  only  were  the  Tolstoys  never  great  Russian 
aristocrats,  they  are  not  even  of  Russian  origin.  The 
founder  of  the  Tolstoy  family  was  a  German  merchant 
named  Dick,  who  came  to  Russia  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  opened  a  store  in  Moscow.  His  business 
prospered,  and  he  decided  to  settle  in  Russia.  When 
he  became  a  Russian  subject  he  changed  his  name  of 
Dick,  which  in  German  means  "  fat,"  to  the  Russian 
equivalent,  Tolstoy.  At  that  period  this  was  obligatory, 
for  the  inhabitants  of  Moscow  distrusted  foreigners ;  it 
was  not  until  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great  that  immi- 
grants found  it  possible  to  keep  their  European  names 
when  they  established  themselves  in  Russia.  Thanks 
to  their  knowledge  of  the  German  language,  the  descend- 
ants of  Dick-Tolstoy  obtained  employment  in  our 
Foreign  Office.  One  of  them  found  favour  with  Peter 
the  Great,  who  liked  to  surround  himself  with  foreigners ; 
he  placed  Peter  Tolstoy  at  the  head  of  his  secret  police. 
Later,  the  Emperor,  in  recognition  of  his  services, 
bestowed  on  him  the  title  of  Count,  a  title  Peter  the 
Q 


226  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Great  had  lately  introduced  in  Russia,  but  which  the 
Russian  boyards  hesitated  to  accept,  thinking  that  it 
meant  nothing. ^ 

Like  all  Germans,  the  descendants  of  Dick-Tolstoy 
were  very  prolific,  and  two  centuries  after  his  arrival  in 
Moscow   there   were   Tolstoys   in   all   our   Government 
offices,  in  the  army  and  in  the  na\'y.     They  married  the 
young  daughters  of  our  hereditary  nobility,  generally 
choosing  such    as  were  well  dowered.      They  did  not 
squander  the  fortunes  of  their  %'v-ives,  and  in  many  cases 
increased  them.     They  were  good  husbands  and  good 
fathers,  with  a  certain  weakness  of  character  which  often 
brought  them  under  the  domination  of  their  wives  or 
mothers.     They  were  industrious  and  useful  in  their 
various  offices,  and  generally  made  good  positions  for 
themselves.     I  have  known  several  Tolstoy  families  who 
were  not  even  acquainted,  and   said   their  relationship 
was   so  distant  that    it   was   practically  non-existent. 
Nevertheless,  I  recognised  in  all  these  families  the  same 
characteristic  traits;    this  shows  how  little  the  Dick- 
Tolstoys  had  been  affected  by  the  Russian  blood  of  their 
marriages.     With  the  exception  of  Count  Fyodor  Tolstoy, 
a  talented  painter,  they  never  rose  above  mediocrity, 
and    Leo  Tolstoy   was    the    first   star   of   the   family.^ 
Tolstoy's  Germanic  origin  would  explain  many  strange 
traits    in    his    character,    otherwise    incomprehensible; 
his   Protestant   reflections   upon  the   Orthodox   Christ, 
his  love  for  a  simple  and  laborious  life,  which  is  very 
unusual  in  a  Russian  of  his  class,  and  his  extraordinary 
insensibility  to  the  sufferings  of  the  Slavs  under  the 
Turks,    which    had    so    astonished    my    father. ^     This 

^  In  Russia  the  title  Count  has  the  same  value  as  the  titles 
Marquis  and  Viscount  in  Japan. 

*  The  poet  Alexis  Tolstoy  was,  it  is  said,  a  Tolstoy  only  in 
name. 

^  The  American  writers  who  were  in  Germany  at  the  beginning 
of  the  recent  war,  speak  of  the  insensibUity  of  the  Germans,  not 


DOSTOYEVSKY  AND   TOLSTOY      227 

Germanic  origin  also  explains  Tolstoy's  curious  in- 
capacity to  bow  to  an  ideal  accepted  by  the  whole 
civilised  world.  He  denies  all  the  science,  all  the  culture, 
all  the  literature  of  Europe.  My  Faith,  My  Confession, 
he  headed  his  religious  rodomontades,  evidently  with  the 
hope  of  creating  a  distinct  culture,  a  Yasnaia  Poliana 
Kultur.  Dostoyevsky,  when  he  speaks  of  Germany, 
always  calls  it  "  Protestant  Germany,"  and  declares 
that  it  has  ever  protested  against  that  Latin  culture 
Ijequeathed  to  us  by  the  Romans  and  accepted  by  the 
whole  world. 

Tolstoy's  Germanic  origin  may  explain  another  pecu- 
liarity of  his  character,  common  to  all  the  descendants 
of  the  numerous  German  families  established  in  Russia. 
These  families  remain  in  our  country  for  centuries, 
become  Orthodox,  speak  Russian,  and  even  sometimes 
forget  the  German  language ;  and  at  the  same  time  they 
always  retain  their  German  souls,  souls  incapable  of 
understanding  and  sharing  our  Russian  ideas.  Tolstoy 
is  a  typical  example  of  this  curious  incapacity.  Ortho- 
dox, he  attacked  and  despised  our  Church.  A  Slav, 
he  remained  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  other  Slavs, 
sufferings  which  stirred  the  heart  of  every  moujik.  An 
hereditary  noble,  he  never  understood  this  institution, 
which  has  had  such  an  immense  importance  in  our 
culture.!     A  writer,  he  did  not  share  the  admiration  of 

only  to  the  sufferings  of  the  Belgians  and  French,  but  also  to 
those  of  their  own  compatriots.  They  describe  the  cruelty  with 
which  operations  were  performed  on  the  wounded  Germans,  and 
the  callousness  with  which  the  latter  endured  these.  It  is  possible 
that  the  notorious  brutalities  of  the  Germans,  of  which  so  much 
was  said  during  the  war,  were  the  result  of  a  contempt  for  suffering 
produced  by  the  severe  discipline  practised  in  Germany  for 
centuries. 

^  In  Anna  Karinina  Tolstoy  relates  how  Levin  (his  o^vn  por- 
trait) is  persuaded  by  his  friends  to  come  to  a  provincial  town 
for  the  triennial  election  of  a  new  Marshal  of  the  nobility.  While 
his  cousins  and  his  brother-in-law,  Stiva  Oblonsky,  are  in  great 
excitement  around  him,  wishing  to  get  rid  of  the  former  Marshal 


228  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

all  his  confreres  for  Pushkin,  that  father  of  Russian 
literature.  Dostoyevsky  gave  up  his  "cure"  at  Ems 
in  order  to  be  present  at  the  inauguration  of  the  monu- 
ment to  Pushkin  at  Moscow;  Turgenev  hurried  home 
from  Paris ;  all  the  other  writers,  whatever  their  parties 
— Slavophils,  or  Occidentals — gathered  fraternally  round 
the  monument  to  the  great  poet ;  Tolstoy  alone  quitted 
Moscow  almost  on  the  eve  of  the  inauguration.  This 
departure  created  a  sensation  in  Russia;  the  indignant 
public  asserted  that  Tolstoy  was  jealous,  and  that  the 
glorification  of  Pushkin  annoyed  him.  I  think  this  was 
all  nonsense.  Tolstoy  was  a  gentleman,  and  the  base 
sentiment  of  envy  was  unknown  to  him.  All  his  life  he 
was  very  sincere  and  very  honest.  Pushkin's  patriotic 
verse  touched  no  chord  in  his  Germanic  soul,  and  he 
would  not  pay  lying  compliments  to  his  memory.  In 
all  our  vast  Russia  Tolstoy  could  only  love  and  under- 
stand the  peasants ;  but  alas  !  his  moujiks  did  not  love 
and  understand  him !  While  our  intellectuals  were 
hurrying  to  Yasnaia  Poliana  to  ask  the  prophet  for 
guidance,  the  moujiks  of  that  village  distrusted  him 
and  his  religion.  Their  grandiose  instinct  told  them, 
perhaps,  that  the  good  old  God  of  Yasnaia  Poliana  was 
only  a  wretched  German  imitation  which  was  nothing 
to  them. 

The  famous  Tolstoyism  has  much  in  common  with  the 
tenets  of  the  German  sects  which  have  long  existed  in 
Russia.  When  they  settled  in  Russia,  the  German 
colonists  at  once  began  to  attack  the  Orthodox  Church, 
which  they  could  not  understand.  They  founded  reli- 
gious sects,  the  spirit  of  which  was  essentially  Protestant, 

and  to  elect  another  who  will  understand  the  interests  of  the 
nobility  better,  Levin  is  perfectly  indifferent,  cannot  imderstand 
their  agitation  and  thinks  only  of  one  thing  :  how  to  get  out  of 
the  town  and  return  as  quickly  as  possible  to  his  village.  He 
had  evidently  no  inkling  of  his  obligations  to  the  nobles  of  his 
province. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   AND   TOLSTOY      229 

tried  to  propagate  their  ideas  among  our  peasants,  and 
sometimes  made  proselytes.  The  best  known  of  these 
sects  are  :  "  Shtunda,"  "  Dubohore,"  and  "  Molokane." 
Like  a  true  German  colonist,  Tolstoy  also  founded  a 
Protestant  sect,  the  "  Tolstoyans,"  and  warred  against 
our  Church  all  his  life.  My  compatriots  were  simple 
enough  to  take  his  religious  ideas  for  Russian  ideas,  but 
foreigners  were  more  clear-sighted.  In  their  studies  on 
Russia,  many  English  and  French  writers  have  noted 
with  surprise  the  affinity  between  Tolstoy's  ideas  and 
those  of  our  different  Germanic  sects.  The  ignorance  of 
my  compatriots  arises  probably  from  the  fact  that  in 
Russia  no  one  attached  any  importance  to  the  German 
origin  of  the  Tolstoy  family.  Let  us  hope  that  there  will 
yet  be  a  biographer  of  the  seer  of  Yasnaia  Poliana,  who 
will  study  him  from  the  point  of  view  of  this  origin. 
Then  we  shall  get  a  real  Tolstoy. 


XXVI 

DOSTOYEVSKY   THE   SLAVOPHIL 

The  Writer's  Journal  had  an  immense  success ;  never- 
theless, my  father  ceased  its  pubUcation  at  the  end  of 
the  second  year,  and  began  to  write  The  Brothers  Kara- 
mazov.  Art  claimed  him,  telling  him  that  he  was  a 
novelist  and  not  a  publicist.  The  Brothers  Karamazov^ 
which  many  critics  consider  the  best  of  Dostoyevsky's 
novels,  is  one  of  those  works  which  every  writer  bears 
in  his  heart  and  ponders  for  years,  putting  off  the 
actual  writing  of  it  till  the  time  when  he  shall  have 
achieved  perfection  in  his  craft.  My  father  did  not 
believe  he  had  reached  this  goal;  he  was  too  severe  a 
judge  to  have  thought  so.  But  something  told  him 
that  he  had  not  much  longer  to  live.  "  This  will  be 
my  last  book,"  he  said  to  his  friends  when  he  told  them 
he  was  going  to  write  The  Brothers  Karamazov. 

Such  novels,  analysed,  meditated  upon,  caressed,  so 
to  say,  for  years,  are  generally  full  of  autobiographical 
details;  we  find  in  them  the  impressions  of  childhood, 
youth  and  maturity.  This  was  the  case  with  The 
Brothers  Karamazov.  As  I  have  said  above,  Ivan 
Karamazov,  according  to  a  family  tradition,  is  a  por- 
trait of  Dostoyevsky  in  his  youth.  There  is  also  a 
certain  likeness  between  my  father  and  Dmitri  Kara- 
mazov, who  perhaps  represents  the  second  period  of 
the  author's  life,  that  between  his  penal  servitude  and 
his  long  sojourn  in  Europe  after  his  second  marriage. 
Dmitri  resembles  my  father  in  his  Schilleresque,  senti- 
mental and   romantic  characteristics,   and  his  naivetS 

230 


DOSTOYEVSKY   THE   SLAVOPHIL     231 

in  his  relations  with  women.  Just  such  an  one  must 
Dostoyevsky  have  been  when  he  took  such  creatures  as 

Maria  Dmitrievna  and  PauUne  N for  women  worthy 

of  respect.  But  his  closest  affinity  with  Dmitri  comes 
out  in  the  arrest,  the  interrogation,  and  the  sentence 
of  the  young  man.  When  he  made  this  trial  so  im- 
portant a  part  of  his  book,  Dostoyevsky  evidently 
wished  to  record  his  own  sufferings  during  the  Petra- 
chevsky  proceedings. 

There  is  also  something  of  Dostoyevsky  In  the  staretz 
Zossima.  The  autobiography  of  this  character  was,  in 
fact,  my  father's  biography,  at  least  so  far  as  it  relates 
to  his  youth.  Dostoyevsky  placed  Zossima  in  provincial 
surroundings,  in  a  humbler  rank  of  life  than  his  own, 
and  wrote  his  autobiography  in  that  curious,  somewhat 
old-fashioned  language  adopted  by  our  monks  and 
priests.  Nevertheless,  we  recognise  in  it  all  the  essential 
facts  of  Dostoyevsky's  childhood :  his  love  for  his 
mother  and  his  elder  brother,  the  impression  made 
upon  him  by  the  masses  he  had  listened  to  as  a  child; 
the  book,  Four  Hundred  Bible  Stories,  which  was  his 
favourite  book;  his  departure  for  the  Military  School 
in  Petersburg,  where,  according  to  the  staretz  Zossima, 
he  was  taught  to  speak  French  and  to  behave  properly 
in  society,  but  where  at  the  same  time  he  imbibed  so 
many  false  ideas  that  he  became  "  a  savage,  cruel, 
stupid  creature."  This  was  probably  my  father's 
opinion  of  the  education  he  had  received  at  the 
Engineers'  School. 

Although  my  father  gave  his  own  biography  to 
Zossima,  he  was  not  content  to  create  an  imaginary 
staretz.  He  wished  to  study  the  type  from  nature, 
and  before  beginning  The  Brothers  Karamazov  he 
made  a  pilgrimage  to  the  monastery  of  Optina  Pustin, 
which  is  not  very  far  from  Moscow.  This  monastery 
was  greatly  venerated  by  my  compatriots  and  looked 


232  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

upon  as  the  centre  of  Orthodox  civilisation ;  its  monks 
were  renowned  for  their  scientific  attainments.  My 
father  visited  it  in  company  with  his  disciple,  the  future 
philosopher,  Vladimir  Solowiev.  Dostoyevsky  was 
much  attached  to  him,  and  some  persons  supposed 
that  he  had  described  Solowiev  in  the  person  of  Aliosha 
Karamazov.i  The  monks  of  Optina  Pustin  were  in- 
formed of  Dostoyevsky's  proposed  visit,  and  they 
received  him  very  cordially.  They  knew  that  he 
intended  to  describe  the  monastery  in  his  new  novel, 
and  each  monk  wished  to  make  him  the  confidant  of 
ideas  and  hopes  for  the  regeneration  of  the  Church  by 
the  re-establishment  of  the  Patriarchate.  It  is  obvious 
that  my  father  merely  gave  a  literary  form  to  the 
speeches  of  Zossima,  Father  Paissy  and  Father  losef. 
In  such  a  momentous  matter  as  a  religious  question  he 
preferred  to  let  the  monks  speak,  since  they  could  speak 
with  authority  and  knowledge.  The  personality  of 
the  staretz  Ambrosius,  who  was  the  original  of  Zossima, 
made  a  great  impression  on  Dostoyevsky;  he  spoke 
of  it  with  emotion  after  his  return  from  his  pilgrimage. 
The  success  of  The  Writer's  Journal,  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  the  inhabitants  of  Petersburg  received 
Dostoyevsky  at  the  literary  soirees,  the  prestige  he 
enjoyed  among  the  students  attracted  the  attention  of 
people  who  felt  more  interest  in  the  politics  than  in 
the  literature  of  their  country.  These  patriots  saw  no 
less  clearly  than  Dostoyevsky  the  abyss  between  the 
Russian  masses  and  the  intellectuals,  which  was  widening 
every  day.  They  longed  to  fill  it;  they  dreamed  of 
establishing  patriotic  schools,  to  accustom  our  young 
people  to  devote  themselves  to  the  great  Orthodox 
work,  our  heritage  from  dying  Byzantium,  instead  of 
allowing  themselves  to  be  carried  away  by  the  socialistic 

^  I  think  myself  that  Ahosha  represents  my  fatlier  in  early 
manhood. 


DOSTOYEVSKY   THE   SLAVOPHIL     233 

Utopias  of  Europe.  A  whole  society  of  patriots 
gathered  round  my  father,  foremost  among  whom 
were  Constantin  Pobedonoszev  and  General  Tcherniaev. 
Pob^donoszev  was  much  liked  and  appreciated  by  the 
Emperor  Alexander  III,  who  kept  him  as  his  almost 
omnipotent  Minister  throughout  his  reign.  Dostoyevsky 
did  not  share  all  the  somewhat  narrow  views  of  his  new 
friend,  but  he  loved  him  for  his  fervid  patriotism  and 
his  honesty,  an  uncommon  quality  in  Russia.  It  was 
probably  this  quality  which  made  Dostoyevsky  choose 
him  as  the  guardian  of  his  children  in  the  event  of  his 
premature  death.  Pobedonoszev  accepted  the  respon- 
sibilities, and,  in  spite  of  his  preoccupation  with  affairs 
of  state,  watched  over  us  until  my  brother's  majority, 
refusing  to  touch  the  money  due  to  him  as  guardian. 
He  had,  however,  never  had  any  children  of  his  own, 
and  knew  little  about  education,  so  he  had  not  much 
influence  upon  us. 

General  Tcherniaev  was  an  ardent  Slavophil.  Touched 
by  the  sufferings  of  the  Slav  peoples,  he  went  to  Serbia, 
collected  an  army  of  volunteers  and  fought  bravely 
against  the  Turks.  His  chivalrous  exploits  produced 
such  enthusiasm  in  Russia  that  Alexander  II  was 
obliged  to  declare  war  on  the  Turks,  and  deliver  the 
Slavs  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  This  war  had  just  come 
to  an  end,  and  Tcherniaev  returned  to  Russia.  Later, 
he  was  appointed  Governor-General  of  our  provinces 
in  Central  Asia ;  but  in  1879  he  was  living  in  Petersburg 
with  his  family,  and  came  to  see  Dostoyevsky  every  day. 
Whenever  I  went  into  my  father's  study  I  found  the 
General  seated  in  his  usual  place  on  the  sofa,  discussing 
the  future  confederation  of  the  Slav  peoples.  My 
father  took  the  deepest  interest  in  this  question.  A 
Slav  Benevolent  Society  had  just  been  founded  in 
Petersburg  under  the  presidency  of  a  great  Russian 
patriot,  Prince  Alexander  Vassiletehikov.      My  father 


234  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

was  offered  the  vice-presidency,  and  he  accepted  it 
eagerly.  He  attached  so  much  importance  to  his 
functions  that  he  would  deprive  himself  of  sleep  in  order 
to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  society,  which  took  place 
in  the  afternoon.  Dostoyevsky  had  so  accustomed 
himself  to  going  to  bed  very  late,  that  he  was  unable 
to  sleep  until  five  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  but  he  always 
insisted  on  being  called  at  eleven  on  the  days  of  the 
meetings. 

My  father's  biographers  have  often  wondered  why 
towards  the  end  of  his  life  he  should  have  been  so 
passionately  interested  in  the  Slav  question,  to  which 
he  had  given  so  little  thought  in  his  youth.  This 
ardour  for  the  Slav  cause  awoke  in  Dostoyevsky  after 
his  long  sojourn  abroad.  When  Russians  go  to  Europe 
for  a  few  months  they  are  generally  dazzled  by  European 
civilisation;  but  when  they  remain  for  several  years 
and  study  it  methodically  my  compatriots  are  struck 
not  so  much  by  the  culture  of  Europeans  as  by  their 
senility.  How  old,  how  worn-out  all  the  Germanic 
tribes  of  Franks,  Anglo-Saxons  and  Teutons  seem  to 
them  1  The  good  qualities  and  the  vices  of  these  people 
are  alike  those  of  the  aged.  Their  very  children  are 
born  old.  It  is  painful  to  listen  to  the  anaemic  reflec- 
tions of  these  little  old  men  and  women  with  bare  legs. 
Europeans  do  not  perceive  this,  because  they  are  always 
living  together;  but  we,  who  come  from  a  youthful 
country,  see  it  very  plainly.  It  is  evident  that  in  a 
few  centuries  the  trembling  hands  of  the  Germans  will 
no  longer  be  able  to  hold  aloft  the  torch  of  civilisation 
handed  to  them  by  the  dying  Romans.  The  Slav 
race  will  pick  up  the  fallen  torch  and  in  its  turn  give 
light  to  the  world.  The  new  world  which  all  await 
impatiently  will  come  from  this  race.  True,  the 
Germans  themselves  realise  the  urgent  need  of  a  new 
idea,  and  seek  it  feverishly,  but  they  are  incapable  of 


DOSTOYEVSKY   THE   SLAVOPHIL     235 

finding  it.  We  have  lately  witnessed  one  of  these 
European  attempts  to  make  a  new  departure  at  last. 
For  a  whole  winter  we  were  regaled  with  talk  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  which  was  to  transform  our  planet 
into  an  earthly  Paradise,  and  the  result  has  been  the 
conclusion  of  the  most  commonplace  military  treaty 
between  France  and  England.  The  incapacity  of  the 
Germans  to  rejuvenate  the  world  is  easily  explained; 
the  whole  of  their  culture  is  based  upon  the  Latin 
civilisation  of  the  ancient  Romans,  a  civilisation  mag- 
nificent, no  doubt,  but  essentially  pagan.  Try  as  they 
may,  the  Germans  will  never  free  themselves  from 
their  aristocratic,  feudal  ideas.  The  Slavs,  whose 
civilisation  is  more  recent,  knew  nothing  of  the  Latins. 
Their  culture,  received  from  the  Orthodox  Church  of 
the  East,  was  profoundly  Christian  from  the  beginning. 
We  Slavs,  a  race  of  humble  shepherds  and  modest 
husbandmen,  have  never  had  a  feudal  aristocracy. 
European  capitalism  is  unknown  among  us.  If  by 
chance  a  Slav  makes  a  great  fortune,  his  children 
squander  it.  Their  instinct  tells  them  that  capitalists 
are  slaves,  and  they  hasten  to  break  the  chains  forged 
by  unwise  fathers.  It  would  be  easy  for  us  to  introduce 
into  the  world  the  new  idea  of  Christian  democracy 
which  alone  can  calm  the  fever  of  socialist  and  anarchist 
agitation. 

Dostoyevsky,  foreseeing  the  great  mission  which  will 
some  day  be  entrusted  to  the  Slavs,  earnestly  desired 
their  union  in  preparation  for  this  solemn  moment. 
He  dreamed  of  a  confederation  of  all  the  Slav  nations, 
a  pacific  confederation,  guiltless  of  any  designs  of 
conquest,  or  any  desire  to  enslave  the  Germanic  races. 
Each  Slav  country  to  keep  its  independence,  its  laws, 
its  institutions,  its  government,  but  all  to  unite  in  ideas, 
science,  literature  and  art.  Whereas  the  Germanic 
nations  organised  Olympic  games  in  order  to  show  each 


236  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

other  the  strength  of  their  mailed  fists,  we  Slavs  would 
organise  more  intelligent  Olympiads,  assembling  in  turn 
in  our  various  capitals  to  admire  the  pictures  and  statues 
of  our  artists,  listen  to  the  music  of  our  composers,  and 
hear  readings  from  our  poets  and  men  of  letters.  Instead 
of  exhausting  ourselves  in  fratricidal  wars  as  the 
unhappy  Germans  have  done,  we  would  help,  encourage, 
and  fraternise  with  our  fellows.  Before  offering  the 
new  law  of  Christian  democracy  to  the  world,  we  would 
begin  by  showing  other  nations  an  example  of  brother- 
hood and  equality.  This  consummation  seems  very 
remote  at  present.  The  Slavs,  but  newly  delivered 
from  the  yoke,  are  busy  fixing  the  frontiers  of  their 
little  states.  They  are  right;  before  embarking  on 
vast  enterprises,  it  is  well  to  consolidate  one's  own 
dwelling.  But  when  all  these  houses — Russian,  Serbian, 
Czech  and  others — have  been  solidly  built,  the  masons 
will  lift  up  their  heads  and  begin  to  work  out  the  great 
destiny  of  their  race. 

And  yet  this  Slav  dream  may  be  realised  sooner  than 
we  think.  The  League  of  Nations,  that  last  refuge  of 
feudal  Imperialism,  may  play  a  great  part  in  the 
organisation  of  the  Slav  Confederation.  The  more 
tactless  Europeans  exasperate  the  Slavs,  meddling  in 
their  domestic  affairs  and  trying  to  bend  them  to  their 
will,  the  sooner  will  the  Slavs  begin  to  build  up  their 
fraternal  union.  The  League  of  Nations  will  soon  be 
confronted  by  a  formidable  Slav  Confederation,  which 
will  be  followed,  logically  and  inevitably,  by  a  Con- 
federation of  all  the  Germanic  nations.  The  world  is 
entering  on  a  new  phase  of  its  civilisation.  The  ancient 
alliance  between  the  countries  of  different  races,  the 
work  of  kings  and  diplomatists,  has  had  its  day.  It 
was  an  anomaly,  for  the  people  in  question  generally 
hated  each  other  the  while  they  lavished  compliments 
and  marks  of  respect.     The  new  confederations,  based 


DOSTOYEVSKY  THE  SLAVOPHIL    237 

upon  the  fraternal  sympathy  of  people  of  the  same  race, 
will  be  more  durable.  As  they  will  be  about  equal  in 
strength,  these  Slav,  Germanic,  Latin  and  Anglo-Saxon 
confederations  will  suppress  war  more  surely  than 
could  a  League  of  Nations,  an  antiquated  expedient 
which  was  once  adopted  in  Europe  under  the  name  of 
the  Holy  Alliance  and  lasted  but  a  short  time.  When 
the  Imperialistic  countries  feel  the  ground  giving  way 
beneath  their  feet,  they  league  themselves  together, 
hoping  to  arrest  the  popular  movement  by  their  united 
strength.  Vain  hope  !  We  can  combat  men,  but  not 
ideas.  The  peoples  of  to-day  desire  above  all  things 
to  be  free  and  independent.  They  will  suffer  no 
tutelage,  no  matter  under  what  form  it  may  be  proposed. 


XXVII 

COUNTESS   ALEXIS   TOLSTOY's   SALON 

Among  the  literary  salons  of  Petersburg  frequented 
by  Dostoyevsky  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  the  most 
remarkable  was  that  of  Countess  Alexis  Tolstoy,  the 
widow  of  the  poet  Alexis  Tolstoy.  Her  family  was  of 
Mongolian  origin,  and  she  had  one  of  those  incisive  minds 
— ^"  sharp  as  steel,"  as  Dostoyevsky  said — which  in 
Russia  are  only  to  be  met  with  among  persons  of  such 
descent.  The  Slav  mind  is  slower,  and  needs  long  pre- 
liminary reflection  before  it  can  grasp  a  subject.  The 
Countess  was  one  of  those  inspiring  women  who  are 
incapable  of  creating  themselves  but  can  suggest  fine 
themes  to  writers.  Her  husband  had  a  great  respect 
for  her  intellect,  and  never  published  an5d:hing  before 
consulting  her.  When  she  became  a  widow  she  settled 
in  Petersburg.  She  was  rich  and  had  no  children,  but 
she  was  greatly  attached  to  a  niece  whom  she  had 
brought  up  and  married  to  a  diplomatist.  This  diplo- 
matist had  been  sent  on  a  mission  to  Persia,  and  while 
awaiting  his  appointment  to  a  more  civilised  post,  the 
niece  and  her  children  made  their  home  with  the 
Countess.  When  Countess  Tolstoy  arrived  in  Peters- 
burg she  received  all  her  husband's  former  comrades, 
the  poets  and  novelists  of  his  day,  and  sought  to  extend 
her  literary  circle.  After  meeting  my  father,  she  invited 
him  to  her  house,  and  was  charming  to  him.  My  father 
dined  with  her,  went  to  her  evening  receptions,  and  was 
persuaded    to    read    some    chapters    of   The   Brothers 

238 


COUNTESS   TOLSTOY'S   SALON      239 

Karamazov  aloud  in  her  drawing-room  before  their 
publication.  He  got  into  the  habit  of  going  to  see 
Countess  Tolstoy  during  his  afternoon  walk,  to  talk  over 
the  news  of  the  day  with  her.  My  mother,  who  was 
of  a  rather  jealous  disposition,  made  no  objection  to 
these  visits,  for  at  this  time  the  Countess  was  past  the 
age  of  seduction.  Dressed  always  in  black,  with  a 
widow's  veil  over  her  simply  arranged  grey  hair,  she  sought 
to  please  only  by  her  intelligence  and  amiability.  She 
rarely  went  out,  and  at  four  o'clock  was  always  at 
home,  ready  to  give  Dostoyevsky  his  cup  of  tea.  She 
was  a  highly  educated  woman,  had  read  a  great  deal  in 
all  European  languages,  and  often  called  my  father's 
attention  to  some  interesting  article  that  had  appeared 
in  Europe.  Dostoyevsky,  absorbed  in  creative  work, 
was  unable  to  read  as  much  as  he  would  have  liked  to 
do.  Count  Alexis  Tolstoy's  health  had  been  bad,  and 
he  had  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  abroad,  making 
a  great  many  foreign  friends,  with  whom  the  Countess 
kept  up  a  regular  correspondence.  They  in  their  turn 
sent  their  friends  who  were  visiting  Petersburg  to  her, 
and  they  became  familiar  figures  in  her  salon.  Convers- 
ing with  them,  Dostoyevsky  remained  in  contact  with 
Europe,  which  he  had  always  considered  his  second 
fatherland.  The  polished  amenity  that  reigned  in  the 
Countess'  salon  was  an  agreeable  change  from  the 
vulgarity  of  other  interiors.  Some  of  his  former  friends 
of  the  Petrachevsky  circle  had  made  fortunes,  and  were 
lavish  of  invitations  to  the  illustrious  writer.  My  father 
visited  at  their  houses,  but  their  ostentatious  luxury  was 
distasteful  to  him;  he  preferred  the  comfort  and  the 
subdued  elegance  of  Countess  Tolstoy's  salon. 

Thanks  to  my  father,  this  salon  soon  became  the 
fashion  and  attracted  numerous  visitors.  "  When 
Countess  Sophie  invited  us  to  her  evenings,  we  went  if 


240  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

we  had  no  other  invitations  more  interesting ;  but  when 
she  added  :  Dostoyevsky  has  promised  to  come,  we 
forgot  all  other  engagements  and  hastened  to  her  house," 
said  an  old  lady  of  the  great  Russian  world  (now  a 
refugee  in  Switzerland)  to  me  the  other  day.  Dos- 
toyevsky's  admirers  in  the  higher  circles  of  Petersburg 
applied  to  Countess  Tolstoy  to  make  them  acquainted 
with  him.  She  placed  her  good  offices  at  their  disposal, 
although  the  business  was  not  always  very  easy. 
Dostoyevsky  was  no  worldling,  and  he  did  not  care  to 
make  himself  agreeable  to  persons  who  were  uncon- 
genial to  him.  When  he  met  people  of  feeling,  good  and 
honest  souls,  he  was  so  kind  to  them  that  they  could 
never  forget  it,  and  twenty  years  later  would  repeat  the 
words  he  had  said  to  them.  But  when  he  found  himself 
in  the  company  of  one  of  the  numerous  snobs  who 
swarm  in  the  drawing-rooms  of  a  capital,  he  remained 
obstinately  silent.  In  vain  Countess  Tolstoy  would  try 
to  draw  him  out  by  adroit  questions,  my  father  would 
answer  "  Yes  "  or  "  No  "  abstractedly,  and  continue  to 
study  the  snob  as  if  he  were  some  strange  and  in- 
jurious insect.  Thanks  to  this  uncompromising  attitude 
he  made  many  enemies;  but  this  was  never  a  matter 
he  took  very  seriously. ^ 

It  will  perhaps  be  objected  that  a  great  writer  like 
Dostoyevsky  should  have  been  more  indulgent  to  stupid 
and  ill-bred  people.  But  my  father  was  right  to  treat 
them  with  contempt,  for  snobbery,  introduced  among  ua 
by  the  barons  of  the  Baltic  Provinces,  was  disastrous  to 

^  This  haughtiness  was  in  strong  contrast  to  the  exquisite 
poHteness  and  amiabihty  with  which  he  would  answer  the  letters 
of  his  provincial  admirers.  Dostoyevsky  knew  that  his  ideas  and 
his  counsels  were  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  all  these  country  doctors, 
schoolmistresses,  and  obscure  parish  priests,  whereas  the  snobs 
of  Petersburg  were  only  interested  in  him  because  he  was  the 
fashion. 


COUNTESS   TOLSTOY'S   SALON      241 

Russia.  Feudal  Europe  has  been  used  for  centuries 
to  bow  before  titled  persons,  capitalists  and  highly- 
placed  functionaries.  The  baseness  of  Europeans  in  this 
connection  has  often  amazed  me  during  my  travels 
abroad.  The  Russian,  with  his  ideal  of  fraternal 
equality,  does  not  understand  snobbery  and  is  repelled 
by  it.  My  compatriots  look  upon  the  haughty  attitude 
of  the  snob  as  a  provocation  and  an  insult,  which  they 
never  forget  and  are  eager  to  avenge.  Two  centuries 
of  Baltic  snobbery  brought  about  the  disintegration  of 
Russia.  On  the  eve  of  the  Revolution  all  our  classes 
were  at  daggers  drawn.  The  hereditary  nobility  hated 
the  aristocracy,  which  encircled  the  throne  like  a  great 
Wall  of  China ;  the  merchants  were  hostile  to  the  nobles, 
who  despised  them  and  would  not  mix  with  them;  the 
clergy  were  impatient  of  the  humble  position  they 
occupied  in  the  Empire;  the  intellectuals,  who  had 
sprung  from  the  people,  were  indignant  when  they  found 
that  Russian  society  looked  upon  them  as  moujiks,  in 
spite  of  their  superior  education.  If  all  had  followed 
Dostoyevsky's  example  and  waged  war  against  snobbery, 
the  Russian  Revolution  might  have  followed  a  different 
course. 

In  Countess  Tolstoy's  salon,  as  in  the  soireh  of  the 
students,  Dostoyevsky  had  even  more  success  with  the 
women  than  with  the  men,  and  for  the  same  reason  : 
he  always  treated  women  with  respect.  The  Russians 
have  always  retained  their  Oriental  point  of  view  with 
regard  to  women.  Since  the  days  of  Peter  the  Great 
they  have  ceased  to  whip  them ;  they  bow  low  to  them, 
kiss  their  hands  and  treat  them  as  queens,  trying  to 
live  up  to  their  European  civilisation.  But  at  the  same 
time  they  consider  women  as  big  children,  frivolous  and 
ignorant,  who  must  always  be  amused  by  jests  and  anec- 
dotes more  or  less  witty.     They  decline  to  discuss  serious 


242  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

subjects  with  them,  and  laugh  at  their  pretensions  to 
an  interest  in  politics.  There  is  nothing  more  exasper- 
ating to  an  intelligent  woman  than  to  see  fools  and 
ignoramuses  posing  as  her  superiors.  Dostoyevsky 
never  adopted  such  a  tone ;  he  never  tried  to  amuse  or 
to  fascinate  women,  but  talked  to  them  seriously,  as  to 
his  equals.  He  would  never  follow  the  Russian  fashion 
of  kissing  women's  hands,  he  thought  the  practice 
humiliating  to  them.  "  When  men  kiss  the  hands  of 
women  they  look  upon  them  as  slaves,  and  try  to  con- 
sole them  for  their  servitude  by  treating  them  like 
queens,"  he  often  said.  "  When  in  the  future  they  come 
to  recognise  them  as  equals,  they  will  be  content  to  shake 
hands  with  them,  as  they  do  with  their  own  comrades." 
Such  speeches  astonished  the  inhabitants  of  Petersburg, 
who  could  not  understand  them.  It  was  one  of  the 
many  ideas  Dostoyevsky  had  inherited  from  his  Norman 
ancestors.  The  English  do  not  kiss  the  hands  of  their 
women,  but  greet  them  by  clasping  their  hands.  And 
yet  there  is  no  country  where  the  women  have  a  freer 
and  more  independent  position  than  England.* 

Dostoyevsky  had  a  strong  affection  for  Countess 
Tolstoy,  who  gave  him  that  literary  sympathy  which 
all  writers  need ;  but  it  was  not  to  her  he  entrusted  his 
family  at  his  death.  He  had  another  friend,  whom  he 
saw  less  frequently,  but  for  whom  he  had  a  greater 
veneration.  This  was  Countess  Heiden,  nie  Countess 
Zubov.  Her  husband  was  Governor-General  of  Fin- 
land, but  she  continued  to  live  in  Petersburg,  where  she 
founded  a  large  hospital  for  the  poor.  There  she  spent 
her  days  tending  the  suffering,   interesting  herself  in 

*  Dostoyevsky's  popularity  with  women  may  also  have  had 
another  cause.  According  to  one  of  his  comrades  in  the  Petra- 
chevsky  conspiracy,  my  father  was  one  of  those  men  who, 
"  though  the  most  virile  of  males,  yet  have  something  of  the 
feminine  nature,"  as  Michelet  says. 


COUNTESS   TOLSTOY'S   SALON      243 

their  affairs  and  trying  to  comfort  them.  She  was  a 
great  admirer  of  Dostoyevsky.  When  they  met  they 
talked  of  religion;  my  father  gave  her  his  views  on 
Christian  education.  Knowing  the  importance  he 
attached  to  the  moral  training  of  his  children,  Countess 
Heiden  became  my  mother's  friend  and  tried  to  influence 
me  for  good.  After  her  death,  which  left  a  great  blank 
in  my  life,  I  understood  all  I  owed  to  this  saintly 
woman. 

The  literary  soirees  inaugurated  by  the  students  of 
Petersburg  soon  became  fashionable  in  the  great  world. 
Instead  of  getting  up  tableaux  vivants  or  amateur  theatri- 
cals, the  great  Russian  ladies  who  patronised  charities 
organised  literary  gatherings  in  their  salons.  Our  writers 
placed  themselves  at  their  disposal  and  promised  their 
help  in  working  for  a  good  cause.  As  always,  Dos- 
toyevsky was  the  great  attraction  of  these  evenings.  As 
the  public  here  was  a  very  different  one  to  that  he  met 
at  the  students'  gatherings,  he  discarded  the  Marmeladov 
monologue  in  favour  of  other  fragments  from  his  works. 
Faithful  to  his  idea  of  bringing  the  intellectuals  and  the 
masses  together,  he  chose  to  read  to  these  aristocratic 
assemblies  the  chapter  in  The  Brothers  Karamazov, 
where  the  staretz  Zossima  receives  the  poor  peasant 
women  who  have  come  on  pilgrimage.  One  of  these 
women  having  lost  her  son  of  three  years  old,  leaves  her 
home  and  her  husband  and  wanders  from  convent  to 
convent,  unable  to  find  comfort  in  her  grief.  It  was 
his  own  sorrow  which  Dostoyevsky  painted  in  this 
chapter;  he,  too,  could  not  forget  his  little  Aliosha. 
He  put  so  much  feeling  into  the  simple  story  of  the  poor 
mother  that  all  the  women  in  his  audience  were  deeply 
moved.  The  Hereditary  Grand  Duchess  Marie  Fyodor- 
ovna,  the  future  Empress  of  Russia,  was  present  at 
one  of  these  evenings.     She,  too,  had  lost  a  little  son  and 


244  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

could  not  forget  it.  As  she  listened  to  my  father's 
reading,  the  Cesarevna  ^  cried  bitterly,  When  the  read- 
ing was  over,  she  spoke  to  the  ladies  who  had  organised 
the  evening,  and  told  them  she  wished  to  talk  to  my 
father.  The  ladies  hastened  to  meet  her  wishes,  but 
they  cannot  have  been  very  intelligent  persons.  Know- 
ing Dostoyevsky's  somewhat  suspicious  character,  they 
feared  he  might  refuse  to  be  presented  to  the  Cesarevna, 
and  determined  to  bring  about  the  interview  by  a 
stratagem.  They  went  to  my  father  and  told  him  in 
mysterious  tones  that  a  very,  very  interesting  person 
wished  to  talk  to  him  about  his  reading. 

"What  interesting  person?"  asked  Dostoyevsky  in 
surprise.  "  Oh !  you  will  see  for  yourself.  Come 
with  us  !  "  replied  the  young  women  laughingly,  and 
they  took  him  to  a  little  boudoir,  pushed  him  in  and 
closed  the  door  behind  him.  Dostoyevsky  was  astonished 
at  these  mysterious  proceedings.  The  little  room  was 
dimly  lighted  by  a  shaded  lamp;  a  young  woman  was 
quietly  seated  by  a  small  table.  At  this  time  of  his  life 
my  father  no  longer  looked  at  young  women ;  he  bowed 
to  the  lady,  as  one  bows  to  a  fellow-guest,  and  thinking 
some  joke  was  being  played  upon  him,  went  out  by  the 
opposite  door.  Dostoyevsky  knew  that  the  Cesarevna 
was  to  be  at  the  party,  but  he  believed,  no  doubt,  that 
she  had  left,  or  perhaps,  with  his  usual  absence  of  mind, 
he  had  forgotten  that  she  was  among  the  audience. 
He  returned  to  the  large  room,  was  immediately  sur- 
rounded, and  plunging  into  a  discussion  which  interested 
him,  entirely  forgot  the  incident.     A  quarter  of  an  hour 

^  Europeans  often  make  a  mistake  in  speaking  of  our  Heredi- 
tary Grand  Dukes  as  "  Tsarevitch."  This  title  belongs  to  the 
sons  of  the  ancient  Moscovite  Tsars.  The  eldest  son  of  the 
Emperor  of  Russia  was  the  "  Cesarevitch,"  and  his  wife  the 
"  Cesarevna."  The  word  Tsar,  which  Europeans  take  for  a 
Mongolian  word,  is  only  "  Caesar  "  pronounced  in  the  Russian 
manner. 


COUNTESS   TOLSTOY'S   SALON      245 

later  the  two  young  women  who  had  taken  him  to  the 
door  of  the  boudoir  rushed  up  to  him. 

"  What  did  she  say  to  you?  "  they  asked  eagerly. 

"  Who  do  you  mean?  "  asked  my  father. 

"  Who?    Why,  the  Cesarevna,  of  course." 

"The  Cesarevna!  But  where  was  she?  I  never 
saw  her." 

The  Grand  Duchess  was  not  content  with  this  futile 
interview ;  knowing  of  the  friendship  between  the  Grand 
Duke  Constantine  and  my  father,  she  asked  the  former 
to  present  Dostoyevsky  to  her.  The  Grand  Duke  at  once 
arranged  a  reception  and  invited  Dostoyevsky,  taking 
care  to  impress  upon  him  whom  he  would  meet.  My 
father  was  rather  ashamed  of  not  having  recognised  the 
Cesarevna,  whose  portraits  were  to  be  seen  in  every 
shop  window  of  the  town.  He  went  to  the  party  bent 
on  being  amiable.  He  was  delighted  with  the  Cesarevna. 
She  was  a  charming  person,  kindly  and  simple,  who  had 
the  art  of  pleasing.  Dostoyevsky  made  a  great  impres- 
sion on  her ;  she  talked  so  much  of  him  to  her  husband 
that  the  Cesarevitch  also  wished  to  make  his  acquaint- 
ance. Through  the  intermediary  of  Constantine  Pobe- 
donoszev,  he  invited  my  father  to  come  and  see  him. 
The  future  Alexander  III  interested  all  the  Russophils 
and  Slavophils  of  the  Empire  greatly.  They  expected 
great  reforms  from  him.  Dostoyevsky  wished  very  much 
to  know  him,  and  to  talk  to  him  about  his  Russian  and 
Slav  ideas.  He  went  to  the  Anitchkov  Palace,  the 
official  dwelling  of  our  Hereditary  Grand  Dukes.  The 
imperial  pair  received  him  together  and  were  charming 
to  him.  It  is  very  characteristic  that  Dostoyevsky,  who 
at  this  time  was  an  ardent  monarchist,  disregarded  Court 
etiquette  and  behaved  in  the  palace  as  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  behave  in  the  salons  of  his  friends.  He  spoke 
first,  got  up  to  go  when  he  thought  the  conversation 


246  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

had  lasted  long  enough,  and  after  taking  leave  of  the 
Cesarevna  and  her  husband,  left  the  room  as  he  always 
left  it,  turning  his  face  to  the  door.  This  was  surely  the 
first  time  in  his  life  that  Alexander  III  had  been  treated 
as  a  mere  mortal.  He  was  not  in  the  least  offended,  and 
later  spoke  of  my  father  with  much  esteem  and  sym- 
pathy. He  saw  so  many  bent  backs  in  his  life  !  Perhaps 
he  was  not  sorry  to  find  in  his  vast  empire  one  spine  less 
supple  than  the  rest. 


XXVIII 

THE    PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL 

In  June  1880  the  inauguration  of  Pushkin's  monu- 
ment at  Moscow  took  place.  This  great  national 
festival  brought  all  political  parties  together :  Slavo- 
phils and  Occidentals  alike  laid  flowers  at  the  base  of 
the  monument  and  celebrated  the  greatest  of  Russian 
poets  in  their  speeches.  Pushkin  satisfied  every  one. 
The  Occidentals  admired  his  European  culture  and  his 
poems,  the  subjects  of  which  were  of  English,  German 
and  Spanish  origin ;  the  Slavophils  exalted  his  patriotism 
and  his  magnificent  Slav  poems.  All  the  Russian 
writers  and  intellectuals  hastened  to  do  him  homage. 
Turgenev  came  from  Paris  and  was  given  a  great 
reception  by  his  admirers.  He  had  a  most  brilliant 
success  at  the  literary  soiries  and  eclipsed  Dostoyevsky, 
but  the  balance  was  redressed  on  the  following  day  at 
the  meeting  of  the  Society  of  Letters,  which  took  place 
in  the  Assembly  Room  of  the  Moscow  nobility.  Here 
Dostoyevsky's  success  was  so  great  that  Pushkin's  fete 
was  transformed  into  a  triumph  for  Dostoyevsky.  The 
leader  of  the  Slavophils,  Aksakov,  declared  from  the 
tribune  that  my  father's  speech  was  "  an  event." 
Senator  Coni,  who  was  present,  gave  me  an  account  of 
it  later.  This  distinguished  jurist  is  also  a  writer  of 
talent  and  a  brilliant  lecturer.  His  sympathies  were 
perhaps  with  the  Occidentals  rather  than  with  the 
Slavophils,  so  his  enthusiasm  for  Dostoyevsky's  speech 
is  the  more  significant.  "  We  were  completely  hyp- 
notised as  we  listened  to  him,"  he  said  to  me.     "  I 

247 


248  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

believe  that  if  a  wall  of  the  building  had  fallen  away 
at  that  moment,  if  a  huge  pyre  had  been  discovered  in 
the  square  and  your  father  had  said  to  us,  '  Now  let 
us  go  and  die  in  that  fire  to  save  Russia,'  we  should  have 
followed  him  to  a  man,  happy  to  die  for  our  country." 
Extraordinary  scenes  took  place  at  the  close  of  the 
speech.  People  stormed  the  platform  to  embrace  him 
and  clasp  his  hand.  Young  men  fainted  with  emotion 
at  his  feet.  Two  old  men  approached  him,  hand  in  hand, 
and  said  :  "  We  have  been  enemies  for  twenty  years ; 
many  attempts  have  been  made  to  reconcile  us,  but  we 
have  always  resisted.  To-day,  after  your  speech,  we 
looked  at  each  other  and  we  realised  that  henceforth 
we  must  live  as  brothers."  Turgenev,  who  had 
hitherto  vouchsafed  only  a  chilly  bow  when  he  met 
Dostoyevsky,  was  deeply  moved,  and,  going  up  to  my 
father,  pressed  his  hand  warmly.  This  action  of  Tur- 
genev's,  and  the  reconciliation  of  the  two  old  enemies, 
were  the  two  incidents  of  the  day  which  impressed 
Dostoyevsky  most.  He  liked  to  talk  of  them  at  Staraja 
Russa  on  his  return  from  Moscow. 

What  magic  words  were  there  in  this  famous  speech, 
which  was  looked  upon  as  a  great  event  by  the  whole  of 
literary  Russia,  those  who  had  been  unable  to  be  present 
at  the  festival  having  read  it  in  the  newspapers  ?  I  give 
a  r6sumi  of  what  Dostoyevsky  said  to  the  intellectuals 
of  his  country  :  ^ 

"  You  are  discontented,  you  suffer,  and  you  ascribe 
your  unhappiness  to  the  system  under  which  you  live. 
You  think  you  will  become  happy  and  contented  if  you 
introduce  European  institutions  into  Russia.  You  are 
mistaken.     Your  sufferings  are  due  to  another  cause. 

*  The  speech,  which  is  rather  long,  contains  a  very  subtle 
analysis  of  Pushkin's  poetry.  The  reader  would  do  well  to  read 
the  complete  text.  I  only  give  my  father's  conception  of  the 
Russian  people  and  its  future.  It  was  this  new  conception 
trhich  had  bo  fired  the  imaginations  of  our  intellectuals. 


THE   PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL  249 

Thanks  to  your  cosmopolitan  education,  you  are  es- 
tranged from  your  people,  you  no  longer  understand 
them;  you  form  a  little  clan,  utterly  foreign  and  anti- 
pathetic to  the  rest  of  the  country,  in  the  midst  of  a 
vast  empire.  You  despise  your  people  for  their  ignor- 
ance, and  you  forget  that  it  is  they  who  have  paid  for 
your  European  education,  they  who  support  by  the 
sweat  of  their  brows  your  universities  and  higher 
schools.  Instead  of  despising  them,  try  to  study  the 
sacred  ideas  of  your  people.  Humble  yourselves  before 
them,  work  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  them  at  their 
great  task;  for  this  illiterate  people  from  whom  you 
turn  in  disgust  bears  within  it  the  Christian  word  which 
it  will  proclaim  to  the  old  world  when  it  is  bathed  in 
blood.  Not  by  servile  repetition  of  the  Utopias  of  the 
Europeans,  which  lead  them  to  their  own  destruction, 
will  you  serve  humanity,  but  by  preparing  together 
with  your  people  the  new  Orthodox  idea." 

These  golden  words  went  to  the  hearts  of  my  com- 
patriots, who  were  tired  of  despising  their  country. 
They  were  glad  to  think  that  Russia  was  no  mere 
copy,  no  servile  caricature  of  Europe,  but  that  she  in 
her  turn  might  have  a  message  for  the  world.  Alas  ! 
their  joy  was  short-lived  !  The  curtain  which  hides 
the  future,  lifted  by  the  hand  of  a  man  of  genius,  fell 
again,  and  our  intellectuals  returned  to  their  fallacies. 
They  worked  obstinately  for  the  introduction  of  the 
European  republic  into  Russia,  despising  the  people  too 
much  to  ask  their  opinion,  and  believing  ingenuously 
that  eleven  million  intellectuals  had  a  right  to  impose 
their  will  on  a  hundred  and  eighty  million  inhabitants. 
Taking  advantage  of  the  weariness  produced  by  an 
interminable  war,  our  intellectuals  at  last  succeeded  in 
introducing  their  long-desired  republic  into  Russia. 
They  soon  realised  how  difficult  it  is  to  govern  in  Russia 
without  the  Tsar.     The  people  at  once  showed  their 


250  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

moral  strength,  which  Dostoyevsky  had  long  ago 
divined,  and  which  his  political  adversaries  persisted 
in  ignoring.  The  pride  of  this  people  of  great  genius 
and  of  a  great  future  was  deeply  wounded  by  the  idea 
that  a  handful  of  dreamers  and  ambitious  mediocrities 
proposed  to  reign  over  them,  and  impose  their  Utopias 
upon  them.  They  struggled  against  them  as  they 
continue  to  struggle  against  the  Bolsheviks.  The  people 
defend  their  ideal,  their  great  Christian  treasure  which 
they  are  keeping  for  the  future  and  which  they  will 
proclaim  to  the  world  later,  when  the  old  aristocratic 
feudal  society  finally  disintegrates.  Have  our  intel- 
lectuals understood  the  lesson  the  Russian  people  have 
just  given  them?  Not  in  the  least.  They  continue 
to  take  their  dream  for  a  reality;  they  believe  the 
Bolsheviks  have  succeeded  in  demonstrating  to  the 
recalcitrant  moujiks  the  excellence  of  the  European 
regime  brought  by  them  from  Zurich  in  their  sealed 
railway  carriage.  For  my  part,  I  believe  that  the 
Bolsheviks  have  given  the  death-blow  to  the  republican 
idea  in  Russia.  Our  peasants  have  long  memories, 
and  for  centuries  to  come  the  word  "  Republic  "  will 
be  to  them  the  synonym  of  disorder,  robbery  and 
murder.  They  will  come  back  to  the  monarchic  idea, 
by  virtue  of  which  they  founded  their  immense  empire, 
but  the  new  monarchy  will  be  much  more  democratic 
than  the  old.  The  people  have  realised  that  their  hare 
are  feeble  folks,  easily  intoxicated  by  Utopias,  incapable 
of  weighing  their  actions,  and  they  will  not  confide 
the  government  of  the  country  to  them  again.  They 
will,  no  doubt,  take  them  into  their  service,  because 
they  will  have  need  of  their  knowledge;  but  at  the 
same  time  they  will  send  to  the  new  Duma  many  more 
of  their  own  representatives  than  before.  These  new 
deputies  will  have  no  European  culture;  but,  possessed 
of  the  good  sense  and  knowledge  of  life  characteristic 


THE   PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL  251 

of  the  Russian  people,  they  will  vote  laws  which  would 
have  seemed  cruel  and  barbarous  to  our  former 
government. 

Russia  has  turned  over  a  new  page  in  her  history. 
Dostoyevsky,  who  understood  and  foresaw  the  future 
so  clearly,  will  become  her  favourite  author.  Hitherto, 
my  compatriots  had  been  content  to  admire  him;  now 
they  are  beginning  to  study  him. 

*  *  *  41  «  If 

It  is  curious  enough  that  not  one  of  the  writers  who 
gathered  round  Pushkin's  monument  and  celebrated  in 
prose  and  verse  the  great  man's  Russian  poetry,  his 
Russian  heart,  his  Russian  ideas  and  his  Russian  sym- 
pathies, made  the  slightest  allusion  to  his  negro  origin, 
which  is  nevertheless  of  great  interest. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  one  of  the  small  negro 
principalities  of  Africa,  on  the  Mediterranean  coast, 
was  conquered  by  its  neighbours.  The  king  was  killed, 
his  harem  and  his  sons  were  sold  to  pirates.  One  of 
the  little  princes,  bought  by  the  Russian  ambassador, 
was  sent  to  Peter  the  Great  as  a  present.  The  Emperor 
gave  the  little  blackamoor  to  his  young  daughters,  who 
played  with  him  as  with  a  doll.  Noticing  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  child,  Peter  the  Great  sent  him  to  Paris, 
where  the  young  Hannibal,  as  the  Emperor  called  him^ 
received  a  brilhant  education.  Later  he  returned  to 
Petersburg  and  served  the  Emperor  with  much  devo- 
tion. Anxious  to  keep  him  in  Russia,  Peter  the  Great 
married  him  to  the  daughter  of  a  hoyard,  and  ennobled 
him.  His  descendants  remained  in  our  country,  mar- 
ried Russians,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  repaid  Russia's  hospitahty  by  giving  her  a 
great  poet.^  Although  he  was  a  good  deal  fairer  than 
his  maternal  ancestors,  Pushkin  had  many  characteristics 
of  the  negro  type  :  black  frizzly  hair,  thick  Hps,  and  the 
^  Pushkin's  mother  was  a  Hannibal. 


252  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

vivacity,  the  passion  and  the  ardour  of  the  natives  of 
Africa.  This  did  not  prevent  him  from  being  Russian 
in  heart  and  mind.  He  formed  our  hterary  language, 
and  gave  us  perfect  models  of  prose,  poetry,  and 
dramatic  art.  He  is  the  true  father  of  Russian  literature. 
Still,  there  are  many  things  in  Pushkin's  life  and  works 
which  are  explicable  by  the  fact  of  his  African  origin. 
Why,  then,  did  none  of  his  admirers  refer  to  it  ? 

Probably,  because  at  this  time  the  idea  of  race- 
heredity  was  unknown  to  the  Russians.  I  do  not 
know  if  it  even  existed  at  all  in  Europe.  It  was  intro- 
duced later  by  Count  Gobineau,  who,  I  believe,  dis- 
covered it  in  Persia.  Certain  French  writers  assimilated 
it,  and,  exaggerating  it  a  little,  made  it  very  fashionable. 
It  is  such  a  basic  truth  that  it  is  impossible  to  write  a 
good  biography  without  taking  it  into  account,  and  we 
ask  ourselves  in  astonishment  how  it  was  that  it  was 
not  discovered  earlier. 

It  was  thanks  to  this  ignorance  of  the  idea  of  heredity 
that  Dostoyevsky  never  attached  much  importance  to 
his  Lithuanian  origin.  Although  he  and  his  brothers 
habitually  said,  "We  Dostoyevsky  are  Lithuanians," 
he  sincerely  considered  himself  a  true  Russian.  This 
was  also  due  to  the  fact  that  the  former  empire  of 
Russia  was  much  more  united  than  is  generally  sup- 
posed. All  those  emigrants  who  at  present  demand 
the  separation  of  their  country  from  Russia  have,  as  a 
fact,  no  solid  following.  The  majority  of  the  Lithu- 
anians established  in  the  large  Russian  towns  were 
sincerely  attached  to  Russia.  They  were  even  more 
patriotic  than  the  Russians,  because  they  had  inherited 
the  idea  of  fidelity  to  their  country  from  their  civilised 
parents,  whereas  the  sentiment  has  never  been  very 
strongly  developed  among  the  Russians.  Our  education 
tended  to  kill  patriotism  instead  of  stimulating  it;  its 
ideal  was  a  pale  and  shadowy  cosmopolitanism.     On 


THE   PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL  253 

the  other  hand,  the  Lithuanians,  with  characteristic 
modesty,  spoke  so  Uttle  of  themselves  and  of  their 
country,  that  Russians  came  to  beHeve  Lithuania  had 
been  long  dead.  It  is  only  since  the  war  that  Lithu- 
anians have  begun  to  raise  their  heads  timidly;  but 
when  we  read  the  books  they  have  published  recently, 
we  see  very  plainly  that  they  know  little  of  the  history 
of  their  own  country.  Their  intellectuals  leave  them 
year  by  year,  migrating  to  Russia,  Poland  and  Ukrania, 
and  the  Lithuanians  who  have  remained  in  the  country 
have  gradually  become  a  rustic  society  of  peasants  and 
small  tradespeople,  who  have  but  a  dim  recollection  of 
their  ancient  glory  and  do  not  understand  its  causes. 
They  forget  their  Norman  culture,  declare  they  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  Slavs,  and  pride  themselves 
on  belonging  to  the  tribe  of  Finno-Turks.  The  Finno- 
Turks  are  a  fine  race;  it  would  ill  become  us  to  dis- 
parage them,  for  they  are  the  ancestors  of  the  Russians, 
the  Poles  and  the  Lithuanians.  But  intellectually  they 
are  inferior  and  have  never  produced  a  single  man  of 
genius.  It  was  not  until  they  were  crossed  with 
superior  races  that  they  emerged  from  their  obscurity 
and  began  to  count  in  history.  The  fusion  of  the 
Finno-Turks  established  on  the  banks  of  the  Niemen 
with  the  Slavs  who  came  down  from  the  Carpathians 
produced  the  Lithuanian  people,  who  later  assimilated 
the  genius  of  the  Normans.  As  long  as  this  Norman 
fire  continued  to  burn  in  the  race,  Lithuania  was  a 
brilliant  and  civilised  state ;  when  it  began  to  die  down, 
Lithuania  gradually  fell  into  oblivion,  though  it  retained 
the  Norman  character  which  distinguished  it  from  its 
Polish,  Ukrainian  and  Russian  neighbours.  It  was 
natural  that  Dostoyevsky  should  have  felt  little  interest 
in  his  obscure  and  forgotten  nation,  and  should  have 
attributed  greater  importance  to  his  Russian  ante- 
cedents.    And  yet  those  who  read  his  letters  will  see 


254  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

that  all  his  life  he  was  haunted  by  the  idea  that  he  was 
unlike  his  Russian  comrades  and  had  nothing  in  common 
with  them.  "  I  have  a  strange  character  !  I  have  an 
evil  character  !  "  he  often  says  in  writing  to  his  friends. 
He  did  not  realise  that  his  character  was  neither  strange 
nor  evil,  but  simply  Lithuanian.  "  I  have  the  vitality 
of  a  cat.  I  always  feel  as  if  I  were  only  just  beginning 
to  live  !  "  he  says,  affirming  that  strength  of  character 
in  himself  which  is  natural  to  the  Norman,  but  which 
he  could  not  find  in  the  Russians.  "  I  happened  to  see 
Dostoyevsky  in  the  most  terrible  moments  of  his  life," 
says  his  friend  Strahoff.  "  His  courage  never  failed, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  anything  could  have  crushed 
him."  1  If  Dostoyevsky  was  surprised  at  his  own 
strength,  the  childish  weakness  of  his  Russian  friends 
was  still  more  surprising  to  him.  He  was  obliged  to 
bring  down  all  his  own  ideas  to  the  level  of  their  com- 
prehension, and  even  so,  they  were  often  at  cross- 
purposes.  Their  puerile  conceptions  of  honour  astounded 
him.  Thus  one  of  his  best  friends,  A.  Miliukov,  anxious 
to  save  him  from  the  trap  set  for  him  by  the  publisher 
Stellovsky,  proposed  that  all  his  literary  friends  should 
help  him  to  complete  the  novel  The  Gambler  by  writing 
each  one  chapter,  and  that  my  father  should  sign  the 
whole.     Miliukov,  in  short,  proposed  that  Dostoyevsky 

^  Dostoyevsky's  biographers  have  laid  too  much  stress  on  the 
eternal  complaints  in  his  letters  to  relations  and  intimate  friends. 
These  should  not  be  taken  too  seriously,  for  neurotic  people  love 
to  complain  and  to  be  consoled.  I  speak  feelingly,  for  I  have 
inherited  this  little  weakness.  My  will  is  very  strong;  I  think 
nothing  could  break  my  spirit  or  crush  me,  and  yet  any  one 
reading  my  letters  to  my  mother  and  my  intimate  friends  would 
get  the  impression  of  a  person  in  despair  and  on  the  verge  of 
suicide.  Doctors  who  specialise  in  nervous  disorders  could  no 
doubt  explain  this  anomaly.  For  my  part,  I  think  that  persons 
may  have  both  very  strong  wills  and  feeble  nerves.  In  their 
actions  they  are  guided  by  their  strong  wills,  but  from  time  to 
time  they  soothe  their  unhealthy  nerves  by  cries  and  tears,  and 
complaints  to  those  of  their  friends  who  are  indulgent  to  them. 


THE   PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL  255 

should  commit  a  fraud,  and  was  quite  unconscious  that 
he  had  done  so.  Later,  when  he  described  this  incident 
to  the  pubUc,  he  gloried  in  having  tried  to  save  his 
illustrious  friend.  "  I  will  never  put  my  name  to 
another  man's  work,"  my  father  replied  indignantly. 

Another  of  Dostoyevsky's  most  characteristic  ideas, 
his  passionate  interest  in  the  Catholic  Church,  is  also 
only  to  be  explained  by  atavism.  The  Russians  have 
never  shown  any  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  Vatican. 
The  Pope  is  hardly  known  in  Russia,  no  one  ever  thinks 
or  speaks  of  him,  hardly  any  %vriter  has  mentioned  him. 
But  Dostoyevsky  has  something  to  say  about  the 
Vatican  in  almost  every  number  of  The  Writer's  Journal, 
and  discusses  the  future  of  the  Catholic  Church  with 
fervour.  He  calls  it  a  dead  Church,  declares  that 
Catholicism  has  long  ceased  to  be  anything  but  idolatry, 
and  yet  we  see  plainly  that  this  Church  is  still  living  in 
his  heart.  His  Catholic  ancestors  must  have  been 
fervid  believers;  Rome  must  have  played  an  immense 
part  In  their  lives.  Dostoyevsky's  fidelity  to  the 
Orthodox  Church  is  merely  the  logical  sequence  of  the 
fidelity  of  his  ancestors  to  the  Catholic  Church.  "  I 
could  never  understand  why  your  father  took  such  an 
Interest  in  that  old  fool  the  Pope,"  said  a  Russian 
^vriter  and  friend  of  my  father's  to  me  one  day.  Now 
to  Dostoyevsky  "  that  old  fool "  was  the  most  interesting 
figure  in  Europe. 

The  spiritual  and  moral  isolation  in  which  my  father 
lived  all  his  life  was  no  unique  phenomenon  in  our 
country.  Nearly  all  our  great  writers  have  been  of 
foreign  descent,  and  have  felt  ill  at  ease  in  Russia. 
Pushkin  was  of  African  origin,  the  poet  Lermontov 
was  the  descendant  of  a  Scotch  bard,  Lermont,  who 
came  to  Russia  for  some  reason  unknown  to  me;  the 
poet  Yukovsky  was  the  son  of  a  Turk,  Nekrassov's 
mother  was  a  Pole;    Dostoyevsky  was  a  Lithuanian, 


256  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

Alexis  Tolstoy  an  Ukrainian,  Leo  Tolstoy  of  German 
blood.  Only  Turgenev  and  Gontsharov  were  true 
Russians.  It  is  probable  that  young  Russia  is  still 
incapable  of  producing  great  talents  unaided.  She  can 
kindle  them  with  the  spark  of  her  genius,  but  the  pyre 
must  be  prepared  by  older  or  more  highly  civilised 
peoples.  All  these  semi-Russians  were  never  at  home 
in  Russia.  Their  lives  were  a  series  of  struggles  against 
the  Mongolian  society  which  surrounded  and  suffocated 
them.  "  The  devil  caused  me  to  be  born  in  Russia  !  " 
cried  Pushkin.  "It  is  a  dirty  country  of  slaves  and 
tyrants,"  said  the  Scottish  Lermontov.  "  I  am  thinking 
of  expatriating  myself,  of  escaping  from  the  ocean  of 
odious  baseness,  of  depraved  indolence  which  threatens 
on  all  sides  to  engulf  the  little  island  of  honest  and 
laborious  life  I  have  created,"  wrote  the  German 
colonist  Leo  Tolstoy.  In  fact,  the  more  prudent  of 
the  great  Russian  writers  left  the  country  :  the  poet 
Yukovsky  preferred  to  live  in  Germany ;  Alexis  Tolstoy 
was  attracted  by  the  artistic  treasures  of  Italy.  Those 
who  remained  waged  war  on  Russian  ignorance  and 
brutality  and  died  young,  vanquished  by  them,  like 
Pushkin  and  Lermontov,  who  were  killed  in  duels. 
Nekrassov  lived  among  the  Russians  and  died  a  most 
unhappy  man ;  Dostoyevsky  himself  records  this  in  his 
obituary  notice  of  Nekrassov.  Tolstoy  isolated  himself 
as  much  as  he  could  in  his  Yasnaia  Poliana,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  isolate  oneself  in  Russia.  His  disciples, 
stupid  Mongols,  ended  by  taking  advantage  of  the  old 
man's  enfeebled  will  and  estranging  him  from  his  wife, 
the  one  person  who  really  loved  and  understood  him; 
they  dragged  him  from  his  home  to  die  by  the  wayside. 
.  .  .  Poor  great  men,  sacrificed  by  God  for  the  civilisa- 
tion of  our  country  ! 

All  these  writers  of  foreign  origin  shared  my  father's 
ideas  about  Russia.     They  loathed  our  so-called  culti- 


THE   PUSHKIN   FESTIVAL  257 

vated  society,  and  were  only  at  their  ease  among  the 
people.  Their  best  types  are  drawn  from  the  peasants, 
who  in  their  eyes  represented  the  future  of  our  country. 
Dostoyevsky  acts  as  interpreter  to  all  these  great  men 
when  he  says  to  the  Russian  intellectuals  :  "You  think 
yourselves  true  Europeans,  and  at  bottom  you  have  no 
culture.  The  people,  whom  you  propose  to  civilise  by 
means  of  your  European  Utopias,  is  much  more  civilised 
than  you,  through  Christ,  before  whom  it  kneels  and 
Who  has  saved  it  from  despair." 


XXIX 

THE   LAST  YEAR   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY'S   LIFE 

DosTOYEvsKY  Came  back  in  the  guise  of  a  conqueror 
to  Staraja  Russa,  where  we  were  settled  for  the  summer. 
"  What  a  pity  you  were  not  at  the  Assembly  !  "  he  said 
to  my  mother.  "  How  I  regret  that  you  did  not  see 
my  success  !  "  Faithful  to  her  rule  of  economy,  my 
mother  had  decided  not  to  accompany  my  father  to 
Moscow;  she  now  urged  him  to  go  to  Ems  as  soon  as 
possible  for  his  usual  cure,  but  Dostoyevsky  had  no 
idea  of  doing  so.  He  was  busy  writing  the  single  number 
of  The  Writer's  Journal  which  appeared  in  1880;  it 
had  an  immense  success.  Dostoyevsky  wished  to 
consolidate  the  theory  he  had  just  enunciated  at  the 
Pushkin  festival  and  reply  to  his  opponents,  who, 
after  the  first  intoxication  was  over,  tried  to  smother 
the  new-born  idea.  He  hoped  to  go  to  Ems  in  Sep- 
tember; then,  exhausted  by  all  the  emotions  of  his 
triumph  and  his  political  struggle,  he  abandoned  his 
foreign  journey,  thinking  he  should  be  able  to  do  without 
Ems  for  once.  Unhappily,  he  did  not  realise  how  worn 
out  he  was.  His  iron  will,  the  ideal  which  was  burning 
in  his  heart  and  filled  him  with  enthusiasm  deceived 
him  concerning  his  physical  strength,  which  was  never 
great. 

He  proposed  to  start  again  with  the  publication  of 
The  Writers  Journal,  for  which  the  single  number  of 
1880  was  to  serve  as  programme.  Now  that  The 
Brothers  Karamazov  was  finished,  he  became  a  publicist 
again  and  threw  himself  once  more  into  the  political 

258 


LAST   YEAR   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY     259 

arena.  The  first,  and,  alas  !  the  only  number  of  1881, 
which  appeared  in  January,  contained  a  detailed  pro- 
gramme. This  testament  of  Dostoyevsky's  proclaims 
truths  which  no  one  would  believe  in  his  lifetime,  but 
which  are  being  realised  by  degrees,  and  will  be  completely 
realised  in  the  course  of  the  twentieth  century.  This 
man  of  genius  foresaw  events  from  afar.  ."  Do  not 
despise  the  people,"  he  said  to  the  Russian  intellectuals ; 
"  forget  that  they  were  once  your  slaves;  respect  their 
ideas,  love  what  they  love,  admire  what  they  admire; 
for  if  you  persist  in  scorning  their  beliefs,  and  in  trying 
to  inoculate  them  with  European  institutions  which 
they  cannot  understand  and  will  never  accept,  the  time 
will  come  when  the  people  will  repudiate  you  in  their 
anger,  will  turn  against  you  and  seek  other  guides. 
You  demand  a  European  parliament,  and  you  hope  to 
sit  in  this  and  to  pass  laws  without  consulting  the  people. 
This  parliament  will  be  nothing  but  a  debating  society. 
You  cannot  direct  Russia,  for  you  do  not  understand  it. 
The  only  possible  parliament  in  our  country  is  a  popular 
assembly.  Let  the  people  meet  and  proclaim  their 
will.  As  to  you  intellectuals,  your  task  will  be  to  listen 
respectfully  to  the  humble  words  of  the  peasant  dele- 
gates and  try  to  understand  them,  in  order  to  give 
juridical  form  to  their  plain  pronouncements.  If  you 
direct  Russia  in  accordance  with  the  desires  expressed 
by  the  people  you  will  not  blunder,  and  your  country 
will  prosper.  But  if  you  isolate  yourselves  in  your 
European  debating  society  you  will  sit  in  darkness, 
knocking  one  against  the  other ;  instead  of  enlightening 
Russia,  you  will  only  be  getting  bruises  on  your  fore- 
heads, i  Increase  the  number  of  your  elementary  schools, 
extend  the  network  of  your  railways,  and,  above  all, 
try  to  have  a  good  army,  for  Europe  hates  you  and  would 
fain  seize  your  possessions.  The  Europeans  know 
that  the  Russian  people  will  always  be  hostile  to  their 


260  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

greedy  capitalist  dreams.  They  feel  that  Russia  bears 
within  her  the  new  word  of  Christian  fraternity  which 
will  put  an  end  to  their  Philistine  regime.  Not  with  the 
Europeans  but  with  the  Asiatics  should  we  work, 
for  we  Russians  are  as  much  Asiatics  as  Europeans. 
The  mistake  of  our  policy  for  the  past  two  centuries 
has  been  to  make  the  people  of  Europe  believe  that  we 
are  true  Europeans.  We  have  served  Europe  too  well, 
we  have  taken  too  great  a  part  in  her  domestic  quarrels. 
At  the  first  cry  for  help  we  have  sent  our  armies,  and  our 
poor  soldiers  have  died  for  causes  that  meant  nothing 
to  them,  and  have  been  immediately  forgotten  by  those 
they  had  served.  We  have  bowed  ourselves  like  slaves 
before  the  Europeans  and  have  only  gained  their  hatred 
and  contempt.  It  is  time  to  turn  away  from  ungrateful 
Europe.  Our  future  is  in  Asia.  True,  Europe  is  our 
mother,  but  instead  of  mixing  in  her  affairs  we  shall 
serve  her  better  by  working  at  our  new  orthodox  idea, 
which  will  eventually  bring  happiness  to  the  whole  world. 
Meanwhile  it  will  be  better  for  us  to  seek  alliances  with 
the  Asiatics.  In  Europe  we  have  been  merely  intruders ; 
in  Asia  we  shall  be  masters.  In  Europe  we  have  been 
Tatars ;  in  Asia  we  shall  be  men  of  culture.  Conscious- 
ness of  our  civilising  mission  will  give  us  that  dignity 
we  lack  as  caricatures  of  Europeans.  Let  us  go  to 
Asia,  to  that  '  land  of  holy  miracles,'  as  one  of  our 
greatest  Slavophils  has  called  her,  and  let  us  try  to  make 
the  name  of  the  White  Tsar  greater  and  more  venerated 
there  than  the  name  of  the  Queen  of  England,  or  the 
name  of  the  Caliph."  ^ 

^  The  above  is  only  a  resume  of  the  last  number  of  The  Writer  s 
Journal,  which  deserves  careful  study  as  a  whole.  It  makes 
manifest  Dostoyevsky's  Norman  spirit,  eager  to  fly  to  unknown 
regions,  and  to  carry  civilisation  to  the  wildest  places.  This 
spirit  is  the  more  remarkable  in  him,  because  it  is  found  in  no 
other  great  Russian  writer.  Tolstoy,  Turgenev  and  Gont- 
sharov  breathe  nothing  of  this  pioneer  spirit.  The  civilisation 
of  the  Mongols  does  not  interest  them. 


LAST  YEAR   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY     261 

This,  Dostoyevsky's  last  will  and  testament,  was 
incomprehensible  to  his  contemporaries.  His  far-seeing 
mind  had  outstripped  theirs.  Russian  society  was 
hypnotised  by  Europe  and  lived  solely  in  the  hope  of 
becoming  entirely  European  some  day.  This  idea  had 
been  greatly  strengthened  by  the  adhesion  of  our  rulers. 
Like  all  the  Slavo-Normans,  the  Romanovs  hated  the 
Mongols  and  feared  Asia.  Our  Tsars,  who  owned  several 
palaces  in  Europe,  had  none  in  Siberia  or  Central  Asia, 
which  they  rarely  visited.  When  Oriental  princes 
came  to  Petersburg  they  were  received  politely  but 
coldly.  Faithful  to  the  traditions  of  Peter  the  Great, 
the  Romanovs  worked  obstinately  at  the  introduction 
of  European  institutions  into  Russia.  All  our  Imperial 
Councils,  Senate,  Duma,  Ministries  and  Chancellories 
were  faithful  copies  of  the  European  models.  Our 
girls'  schools  were  imitations  of  French  convents,  and 
our  military  schools  reproduced  those  of  Germany. 
The  Russian  spirit  was  banished  from  those  establish- 
ments, and  my  young  compatriots  who  were  educated 
in  them  preferred  to  talk  French  to  each  other.  If 
our  sovereigns  succeeded  in  europeanising  our  nobles, 
they  were  unable  to  carry  out  the  process  with  the 
people.  The  Russian  nobles  and  intellectuals  were 
weak,  but  the  people  were  strong  and  remained  faithful 
to  their  historic  mission.  Deprived  of  their  European 
government,  they  immediately  began  to  apply  their 
Russian  policy.  Barely  two  years  after  the  abdication 
of  Nicholas  II,  Colonel  Semenov  was  proclaimed  Grand 
Duke  of  Mongolia,  the  Russians  began  to  negotiate  with 
the  Emirs  of  Afghanistan  and  Kurdistan,  and  the  Hindus 
were  sending  deputations  to  Moscow.  The  fact  is  that 
the  Slav  blood  is  decreasing  more  and  more  in  the  veins 
of  the  Russians,  whereas  their  Mongolian  blood  increases 
year  by  year.  If  the  Slavs  of  the  West  do  not  send  their 
nationals  to  help  us  to  colonise  Asia,  in  a  century  more 


262  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

the  Russians  will  be  completely  mongolised.  The  idea 
of  their  Slav  fraternity  is  already  waning  perceptibly. 
In  1877-8  all  Russia  fought  to  deliver  the  Serbs  and 
Bulgarians,  and  in  1917  our  soldiers  threw  down  their 
arms,  indifferent  to  the  invasion  of  Serbia  by  the  enemy. 
Forgetting  the  Slavs,  our  people  are  transferring  their 
sympathies  to  the  Mongolians.  Formerly  they  fought 
to  deliver  their  Slav  brothers  from  the  Turkish  and 
Austrian  yoke;  now  they  dream  of  delivering  their 
new  brothers,  the  Oriental  peoples,  from  their  European 
oppressors.  The  Asiatic  tribes  in  their  turn  are  attracted 
to  the  Russians  by  their  Mongolian  blood,  which  becomes 
ever  more  apparent  in  our  people.  Russia  has  but  to 
hold  out  her  hand,  and  it  is  eagerly  grasped  by  innumer- 
able brown  paws  !  The  Asiatics  have  long  been  awaiting 
this  gesture.  They  are  weary  of  barbarism  and  yearn 
for  civilisation;  they  aspire  to  play  their  part  in  the 
destinies  of  the  world.  The  civilisation  the  English 
offer  them  is  too  lofty  for  them ;  they  cannot  assimilate 
it,  all  the  less  because  it  is  offered  to  them  with  scorn. 
The  English  are  ready  to  construct  canals  and  railways 
in  India,  but  they  refuse  to  mix  with  the  natives  and  leave 
them  to  rot  in  their  pagan  superstitions.  Yet  nothing 
is  so  wounding  to  the  Oriental  as  contempt,  for  nowhere 
is  the  sense  of  dignity  so  highly  developed  as  in  the  East. 
The  Oriental  peoples  will  always  be  attracted  to  the 
Russians,  for  the  bear  is  reputed  a  kindly,  modest  and 
generous  beast.  It  is  well  known  in  the  East  that  he 
is  ready  to  give  a  fraternal  salute  to  all  the  muzzles 
that  offer  themselves,  regardless  of  their  colour.  He 
will  gladly  mate  with  the  Mongolian  and  will  love  his 
yellow  cubs  as  tenderly  as  his  white  cubs.  Russia  will 
give  Mongolia  her  European  culture,  which  is  as  yet 
small,  and  therefore  easy  to  assimilate.  She  will  pro- 
claim the  Gospel  to  them  and  invite  the  Orientals  to 
the  banquet  of  the  Lord.     In  former  times,  the  days 


LAST  YEAR   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY     263 

of  the  Moscovite  Patriarchs  and  Tsars,  the  Christian 
mission  was  considered  to  be  the  sacred  duty  of  Muscovy. 
When  the  Russians  had  vanquished  some  MongoUan 
tribe,  they  at  once  sent  their  missionaries  into  the 
conquered  provinces.  They  built  churches  and  con- 
vents, they  attracted  the  young  Oriental  princes  to 
Moscow,  and  dazzled  them  with  the  fetes  of  the  Tsars, 
the  splendour  and  the  friendliness  of  the  hoyards.  The 
young  Mongolians,  fascinated  by  the  first  civilisation 
they  had  encountered,  embraced  Orthodoxy,  together 
with  all  their  tribe.  The  majority  of  our  aristocrats 
and  hereditary  nobles  are  descended  from  these  Mongolian 
princes,  and  are  distinguished  by  their  ardent  patriotism. 
By  suppressing  the  Patriarchate,  Peter  the  Great  put 
an  end  to  this  excellent  Moscovite  policy.  His  successors 
followed  his  example,  and  instead  of  sending  missionaries 
to  Asia,  patronised  the  mosques,  adorning  them  with 
splendid  carpets  from  the  Russian  palaces ;  they  helped 
the  Buddhists  to  construct  their  temples,  to  the  great 
indignation  of  our  clergy,  who  were  always  faithful 
to  the  Moscovite  tradition.  Future  Russian  patriarchs 
will  renew  their  Christian  effort  in  Asia.  Europeans 
seek  only  mines  of  gold  and  of  silver  in  the  continent ; 
we  Russians  will  find  in  this  "  land  of  holy  miracles" 
other  mines,  of  greater  value  to  humanity.  We  will 
discover  treasures  of  faith,  eloquent  apostles,  capable 
of  combating  the  atheism  of  Europe,  and  of  curing  this 
mortal  malady. 

The  Russian  Revolution  heralds  the  awakening  of  all 
Asia.  The  European  phase  of  our  history  is  at  an  end ; 
its  Oriental  phase  is  about  to  begin.  The  Russians  will 
gradually  lose  all  interest  in  European  affairs  and  will 
become  absorbed  in  those  of  Asia.  They  will  help  the 
other  Oriental  nations  to  shake  off  the  European  yoke 
and  will  take  them  under  their  protection.  Dostoy- 
evsky's  dream  will  be  realised  :   the  name  of  the  White 


264  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Tsar  will  be  more  venerated  than  that  of  the  English 
king  or  that  of  the  Caliph. 

Strange  to  say,  the  Europeans  are  actually  promoting 
our  conquest  of  Asia,  which  will  deprive  them  of  their 
rich  Oriental  colonies.  Taking  advantage  of  the  present 
disorders  in  Russia,  they  are  working  feverishly  to  detach 
Lithuania,  Ukrainia,  Georgia,  Finland,  Esthonia  and 
Livonia  from  her.  They  think  thus  to  weaken  our 
country,  and  do  not  see  that  as  a  fact  they  will  strengthen 
her.  The  Lithuanians,  the  Ukrainians,  the  Georgians 
and  the  natives  of  the  Baltic  Provinces  have  always 
hated  and  despised  the  Mongolian  blood  of  the  Russians, 
and  have  done  all  they  could  to  turn  us  away  from  Asia. 
More  highly  civilised  than  the  Russians,  they  have  had 
an  immense  influence  on  my  compatriots,  and  have 
constituted  the  chief  barrier  to  our  fusion  with  the 
Asiatics.  When  there  are  no  longer  any  Slavo-Norman 
and  Georgian  deputies  in  the  Duma,  the  Russian  deputies 
will  agree  better,  and  their  Mongolian  blood  will  draw 
them  to  the  East.  Europeans  clamour  for  a  democratic 
regime  in  Russia,  and  do  not  see  that  the  more  democratic 
Russia  becomes,  the  more  hostile  will  she  be  to  Europe. 
Our  aristocrats  and  nobles  talked  French  and  English 
to  each  other  and  looked  upon  Europe  as  their  second 
fatherland;  our  middle  classes  and  peasants  do  not 
learn  foreign  languages,  do  not  read  European  authors,  do 
not  travel  in  Europe,  and  dislike  foreigners.  They  will 
bear  their  new  Tsars  towards  Asia,  and  these  rulers, 
freed  from  the  European  influence  of  Baltic  barons, 
Poles  and  Georgians,  will  no  longer  be  able  to  oppose 
the  will  of  the  people.  By  creating  a  democratic  regime 
in  Russia,  Europeans  and  Americans  think  they  will 
prepare  the  way  for  the  exploitation  of  our  mineral  and 
vegetable  wealth.  They  are  wrong,  for  our  moujiks 
will  be  more  tenacious  guardians  of  the  soil  than  our 
Europeanised  nobles,  who  were  ready  to  barter  their 


LAST   YEAR   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY     265 

possessions  for  the  means  to  enjoy  life  on  the  terraces 
of  Monte  Carlo.  The  moujiks  always  initiate  their 
strikes  and  insurrections  by  killing  the  European  staff 
in  mines  and  factories.  The  thought  that  foreigners 
are  becoming  millionaires  by  virtue  of  our  national 
riches  seems  to  them  profoundly  humiliating.  Deceived 
by  our  emigres,  Europeans  and  Americans  know  nothing 
of  the  real  character  of  our  peasants,  and  generally 
take  them  for  idiots  who  can  be  easily  ruled.  The 
Europeans  hesitate  to  fight  against  Bolshevism,  hoping 
that  disorder  will  weaken  Russia;  and  meanwhile  the 
Russians  are  consolidating  their  new  friendship  with  the 
Orientals,  which,  based  as  it  is  on  mutual  sympathy,  may 
become  very  strong.  While  Europe  is  changing  her 
attitude  to  our  country  daily,  uncertain  what  policy  to 
follow,  Russia,  the  bird  of  fire,  will  take  flight  definitively 
to  the  East.  The  blindness  of  Europe  and  America 
in  this  connection  is  almost  comic,  yet  it  is  in  the  order 
of  things.  When  God  is  about  to  proclaim  a  new  truth 
to  the  world.  He  begins  by  blinding  those  who  cling 
to  the  old  idea  which  has  become  meaningless  and  useless. 

*  4c  *  *  4c  4: 

While  thus  occupied  with  the  politics  of  his  country, 
Dostoyevsky  did  not  neglect  his  children,  and  he  con- 
tinued to  read  the  masterpieces  of  Russian  literature 
to  us  in  the  evenings.  During  this  last  winter  of  his 
life  he  recited  to  us  fragments  of  Griboiedov's  celebrated 
play.  The  Misfortune  of  Being  Too  Clever.  This  witty 
comedy  is  full  of  phrases  which  have  become  proverbial 
among  us.  Dostoyevsky  had  a  great  admiration  for 
this  excellent  satire  on  Moscow  society,  and  liked  to  see 
it  performed.  He  thought,  however,  that  our  actors 
misunderstood  it,  especially  as  to  the  part  of  Repetilov, 
in  whom  he  saw  the  personification  of  the  hberal  party 
among  the  Occidentals.  Repetilov  does  not  appear 
until  the  end  of  the  piece.     He  is  invited  to  Famonsov's 


266  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

ball,  but  does  not  arrive  till  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
when  all  the  other  guests  are  leaving.  He  comes  in 
rather  drunk,  supported  by  two  footmen,  and  at  once 
begins  to  declaim  interminable  speeches;  the  guests 
listen  with  smiles  and  gradually  slip  away,  leaving  their 
places  to  others.  Repetilov  does  not  notice  that  his 
audience  is  shifting  and  changing,  and  he  talks  on. 
Our  actors  represent  Repetilov  as  a  buffoon,  but  Dostoy- 
evsky  considered  the  type  intensely  tragic.  He  was 
right,  for  the  incapacity  of  our  intellectuals  to  under- 
stand Russia  and  find  useful  work  for  her,  their  Oriental 
indolence  which  manifests  itself  in  interminable  talk, 
is  a  disease.  Dostoyevsky  had  so  often  declaimed  and 
explained  this  comedy  to  us  that  at  last  he  wished  to 
play  the  part  himself,  in  order  to  show  his  conception  of 
it.  He  expressed  this  wish  to  some  friends,  who  pro- 
posed that  he  should  get  up  private  theatricals  at  their 
house,  and  give  the  final  act  of  Griboiedov's  famous 
work.  This  interesting  project  was  much  discussed  in 
Petersburg.  My  father  would  not  appear  in  public 
until  he  was  well  prepared,  and  rehearsed  constantly 
to  his  children.  As  usual,  he  was  fired  by  his  new  idea 
and  acted  seriously,  walked  in,  stumbled,  gesticulated 
and  declaimed.  We  followed  his  impersonation  admir- 
ingly.    We  had  a  little  friend.  Serge  K ,  the  only  son 

of  a  rich  widow,  who  spoiled  him  a  good  deal.  In  one 
of  the  rooms  of  her  fiat  she  had  a  small  stage  built  with 
a  curtain  and  a  little  scenery,  and  there  we  acted  for 
our  parents,  representing  Krilov's  fables  or  the  poems 
of  our  great  Russian  writers.  In  spite  of  his  many 
occupations,  Dostoyevsky  never  missed  our  performances, 
and  would  encourage  the  young  actors  by  applause. 
We  began  to  have  a  passion  for  the  theatre,  and  our 
father's  performance  interested  us  greatly.  I  have 
always  regretted  that  Dostoyevsky' s  death  prevented 
him    from    appearing    as    an    actor.     He    would    have 


LAST   YEAR   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY     267 

created  an  original  and  memorable  type.  This,  indeed, 
was  not  the  first  time  that  the  Ukrainian  passion  for  the 
theatre  had  manifested  itself  in  Dostoyevsky.  When  he 
first  came  out  of  prison  he  wrote  a  comedy.  An  Uncle's 
Dream,  which  he  afterwards  transformed  into  a  novel. 
In  one  of  his  letters  he  says  that  he  had  laughed  a  good 
deal  while  writing  this  play.     He  declared  that  the  hero, 

Prince  K ,  was  like  himself,  and  indeed  the  naive  and 

chivalrous  character  of  the  poor  prince  recalls  that  of 
my  father.  Later,  when  he  returned  to  Petersburg, 
Dostoyevsky  was  fond  of  inventing  speeches  "  in  the 

manner  of  Prince  K ,"  and  he  would  declaim  them  to 

his  friends,  assuming  the  voice  and  gestures  of  the  poor 
degenerate.  This  amused  him  very  much,  and  he  was 
able  to  give  life  to  his  hero.  It  is  curious  that  my 
father  twice  represented  himself  as  a  prince — in  The 
Idiot  and  An  Uncle's  Dream — and  in  each  instance  as 
a  degenerate. 


XXX 

DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Towards  the  end  of  January  my  aunt  Vera  came  from 
Moscow  to  stay  with  her  sister  Alexandra.  My  father 
was  dehghted  to  hear  of  her  arrival,  and  hastened  to 
invite  her  to  dinner.  He  recalled  with  pleasure  the 
numerous  visits  he  had  paid  to  her  house  and  the  cordial 
welcome  he  had  received  during  his  widowerhood.  He 
looked  forward  to  talking  with  her  about  his  nephews 
and  nieces,  about  his  mother,  and  their  childhood  at 
Moscow  and  Darovoye.  He  had  no  suspicion  that  his 
sister  was  bent  on  a  very  different  kind  of  conversation. 

The  fact  is  that  the  Dostoyevsky  had  long  been  at 
daggers  drawn  concerning  the  heritage  of  their  aunt 
Kumanin.  When  she  died  she  left  all  her  money  to  her 
husband's  heirs ;  but  a  tract  of  timber-land  of  some  twelve 
thousand  deciatin  in  the  government  of  Riazan  was 
to  be  divided  between  her  Dostoyevsky  nephews  and 
nieces,  and  the  children  of  another  sister,  or  cousin. 
The  numerous  heirs  could  not  agree,  and  wasted  time 
in  interminable  disputes.  These  discussions  went  on  at 
Moscow,  and  my  father,  who  was  but  slightly  acquainted 
with  his  aunt's  relatives,  took  no  part  in  them,  and 
waited  impatiently  for  them  to  come  to  some  agreement 
and  hand  over  his  share  of  the  bequest,  which  amounted 
to  two  thousand  deciatin.  It  was  a  very  considerable 
property;  unfortunately,  it  was  far  from  a  railway  and 
difficult  of  access,  which  diminished  its  value.  Never- 
theless, Dostoyevsky  set  great  store  on  it,  for  it  was  the 
only  property  he  could  leave  to  his  family.     And  this 

268 


DEATH  OF   DOSTOYEVSKY         269 

heritage    was    suddenly    called    in    question    by    his 
sisters. 

According  to  Russian  law  at  that  time,  women  might 
only  inherit  a  fourteenth  share  of  any  real  estate.     My 
aunts,  who  were  all  rather  avaricious,  had  counted  a  good 
deal  upon  their  aunt's  property,  and  were  very  much 
annoyed  to  find  they  were  to  receive  a  mere  trifle.     They 
then  remembered  how  readily  their  brother  Fyodor  had 
given  up  his  right  to  his  parent's  property  in  return  for 
a  small  sum  of  ready  money.     They  thought  he  would 
allow  himself  to  be  plundered  a  second  time  just  as 
readily,  and  they  asked  him  to  resign  his  claim  in  favour 
of  his  three  sisters,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  already 
received  much  more  from  his  aunt  than  any  other  member 
of  the  family.     It  is  true  that  he  was  always  the  favourite 
of  his  aunt,  who  was  also  his  godmother.     But  in  the  first 
place  my  great-aunt  Kumanin  had  inherited  her  fortune 
from  her  husband,  and  was  at  liberty  to  dispose  of  it  as 
she  pleased ;   and  secondly,  my  father  had  spent  most  of 
the  money  given  him  by  his  aunt  in  providing  for  the 
needs  of  the  Dostoyevsky  family.     In  a  letter  to  a  friend 
my  father  told  how  he  had  sacrificed  12,000  roubles  he 
had  received  from  her  in  an  effort  to  save  the  newspaper 
Epoha,  which  belonged  to  his  brother  Mihail.     He  had 
helped  his  brother  Nicolai  all  his  life,  and  his  sister 
Alexandra  during  her  husband's  illness,  to  say  nothing 
of  my  uncle    Mihail' s    children,   who    were  dependent 
on  him  for  years.     Nevertheless,  knowing  the  generosity 
of  my  father's  nature,  I  am  sure  that  he  would  have 
given  up  his  share  of  the  heritage  to  his  sisters  if  he  had 
not  had  to  consider  the  superior  claims  of  his  wife  and 
children.     He  had  at  last  paid  off  his  brother  Mihail' s 
debts,  but  as  he  had  to  provide  for  three  households — 
that  of  his  brother  Nicolai,  that  of  his  stepson  Issaieff,  and 
his  own — he  spent  all  he  made  and  could  save  nothing. 
It  is  true  that  he  had  his  works  to  leave  us;    but  in 


270  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

Russia  there  is  no  security  in  such  a  heritage.  It  often 
happens  that  a  writer  who  has  been  widely  read  during 
his  hfe  is  completely  forgotten  after  his  death.  At  that 
time  no  one  could  have  foreseen  the  huge  place  Dos- 
toyevsky  was  destined  to  fill,  not  only  in  Russia  but 
throughout  the  world.  He  himself  did  not  suspect  it. 
The  translation  of  his  works  into  foreign  languages  had 
already  begun,  but  he  attached  little  importance  to  these 
translations.  He  thought  himself  a  Russian,  and 
declared  that  Europeans  were  incapable  of  understanding 
Russian  ideas.  He  was  right,  for  our  great  writers — 
Pushkin,  Lermontov,  Gogol,  Griboiedov,  Gontsharov 
and  Ostrovsky — never  had  any  great  success  in  Europe ; 
nor,  indeed,  had  Turgenev,  though  his  European  friends 
advertised  him  zealously.  Dostoyevsky  was  oblivious 
of  his  Norman  spirit,  which  endeared  him  to  the  people 
of  Europe,  just  as  Tolstoy's  Germanic  spirit  had  ensured 
his  fame  abroad.  There  is  scarcely  any  nation  in  Europe 
or  America  which  has  not  some  admixture  of  Norman 
blood  in  its  veins.  The  passionate  faith  of  the  Normans 
and  their  prodigious  perspicacity,  which  are  manifested 
in  Dostoyevsky' s  works,  appeal  to  Europeans,  while  his 
tender,  generous,  enthusiastic  Slav  soul  attracts  the 
Slavs.  The  Mongolian  strain,  which  my  father  had 
inherited  from  his  Moscovite  grandfather,  was,  on  the 
other  hand,  very  weak  in  him ;  this  is  perhaps  why  the 
Oriental  peoples,  including  the  Jews,  have  never  loved 
Dostoyevsky. 

My  father  could  not  reckon  upon  any  Government 
pension  for  his  wife  and  children.  Pensions  were  only 
given  to  the  widows  of  Government  officials,  and  my 
father  refused  to  serve  the  State,  for  he  wished  to  remain 
free  and  independent.  My  mother  was  the  first  widow 
of  a  writer  to  whom  the  State  awarded  a  pension,^  and 

^  The  Government  gave  my  mother  the  pension  of  2000  roubles 
(£200)  which  is  allotted  to  the  widows  of  generals.     She  was 


DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY  271 

it  was  a  surprise  to  every  one.  My  father  felt  that  he 
had  no  right  to  take  the  bread  of  his  children  to  give  to 
his  sisters,  who,  indeed,  were  better  off  than  we  were. 
My  aunt  Alexandra  had  a  house  in  Petersburg,  my  aunt 
Barbara  owned  several  in  Moscow,  my  aunt  Vera  had 
kept  Darovoye,  her  parents'  estate,  for  herself.  They 
had  all  married  young,  and  at  the  time  of  which  I  am 
writing  their  children  were  grown  up  and  able  to  earn 
their  own  living,  while  we  were  still  very  little.  In 
vain  did  Dostoyevsky  argue  thus  with  his  sisters ;  they 
would  not  listen  to  reason.  My  aunt  Alexandra 
quarrelled  with  her  brother,  and  ceased  to  visit  us; 
my  aunt  Barbara,  more  diplomatic,  held  aloof,  and  would 
not  discuss  the  matter.  Knowing  how  much  attached 
Dostoyevsky  was  to  his  sister  Vera's  family,  the  other 
two  sent  her  to  my  father  to  make  a  fresh  attempt. 

The  family  dinner  took  place  on  Sunday,  the  25th  of 
Ja.nuary.  It  began  gaily  with  jokes  and  reminiscences 
of  the  games  and  amusements  of  Dostoyevsky' s  childhood. 
But  my  aunt  was  anxious  to  get  to  business,  and  she 
began  to  discuss  the  eternal  question  of  the  Kumanin 
estate  which  had  poisoned  the  lives  of  all  the  Dostoyevsky. 
My  father  frowned;  my  mother  tried  to  turn  the  con- 
versation by  questioning  her  sister-in-law  about  her 
children.  It  was  no  use;  my  aunt  Vera  was  the  least 
intelligent  of  the  whole  family.  Well  coached  by  her 
cleverer  and  more  cunning  Sisters,  she  was  afraid  of 
forgetting  their  instructions,  and  continued  to  talk 
of  her   business,    with    growing   excitement.      In   vain 

further  offered  two  nominations  for  us  in  the  Corps  of  Pages  and 
the  Smolny  Institute,  aristocratic  Russian  schools.  She  accepted 
these,  but  at  the  time  we  were  too  young  to  be  sent  to  school. 
When  we  were  older,  the  posthumous  edition  of  my  father's 
works  was  yielding  such  a  good  income  that  my  mother  placed 
us  in  other  establishments  and  paid  for  our  education  herself. 
She  explained  to  us  that  according  to  my  father's  ideas  parents 
ought  to  provide  for  their  children  themselves  and  leave  the 
nominations  to  orphans. 


272  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

Dostoyevsky  explained  his  difficult  financial  position, 
and  spoke  of  his  duties  as  a  father ;  my  aunt  would  not 
listen;  she  reproached  my  father  for  his  "  cruelty"  to 
his  sisters,  and  ended  by  bursting  into  tears.  Dostoyevsky 
lost  patience,  and  refusing  to  continue  the  painful 
discussion,  left  the  table  before  the  meal  was  finished. 
While  my  mother  was  escorting  her  sobbing  sister-in-law, 
who  insisted  on  going  home  at  once,  my  father  took 
refuge  in  his  own  room.  He  sat  down  at  his  writing- 
table,  holding  his  head  in  his  hands.  He  felt  an  extra- 
ordinary weariness  creeping  over  him.  He  had  looked 
forward  so  much  to  this  dinner,  and  this  cursed  heritage 
had  spoilt  his  evening.  .  .  .  Suddenly  he  felt  a  strange 
moisture  on  his  hands;  he  looked  at  them;  they  were 
covered  with  blood.  He  touched  his  mouth  and  his 
moustache  and  withdrew  his  hand  in  horror.  He  had 
never  had  any  haemorrhage  before.  He  was  terrified  and 
called  his  wife.  My  mother  hurried  to  him,  and  sent 
at  once  for  the  doctor;  meanwhile  she  made  us  come 
into  my  father's  room,  tried  to  joke,  and  brought  in  a 
comic  newspaper  which  had  just  arrived.  My  father 
regained  his  self-possession,  laughed  at  the  comic 
illustrations,  and  joked  with  us  in  his  turn.  The  blood 
had  ceased  to  flow  from  his  mouth ;  his  face  and  hands 
had  been  washed.  Seeing  our  father  laughing  and  jesting, 
we  could  not  understand  why  our  mother  had  said  that 
papa  was  ill  and  that  we  must  try  to  amuse  him.  The 
doctor  arrived  at  last,  reassured  my  parents,  declared 
that  haemorrhage  often  occurred  in  cases  of  catarrh  of 
the  respiratory  organs,  but  ordered  my  father  to  go  to 
bed  at  once  and  to  stay  there  for  two  days,  keeping  as 
quiet  as  possible.  My  father  lay  down  obediently  on 
his  Turkish  sofa,  never  to  rise  again.  .  .  . 

The  next  morning  he  woke  cheerful  and  comfortable. 
He  had  slept  well,  and  only  remained  in  bed  because  of 
the    doctor's  instructions.     He  wished    to   receive    his 


DEATH   OF  DOSTOYEVSKY  273 

intimate  friends  who  visited  him  every  day,  and  he 
spoke  to  them  about  the  first  number  of  The  Writer's 
Journal  of  1881  which  was  about  to  appear,  and  in 
which  he  was  deeply  interested.  Seeing  that  my  father 
attached  no  importance  to  his  illness,  his  friends  thought 
that  it  was  a  passing  indisposition.  In  the  evening,,  after 
they  had  left,  my  father  had  another  haemorrhage.  As 
the  doctor  had  told  my  mother  that  this  would  perhaps 
happen,  she  was  not  much  alarmed.  She  was,  however, 
greatly  distressed  on  the  following  day,  Tuesday,  by 
the  extreme  prostration  of  her  husband.  Dostoyevsky 
had  ceased  to  interest  himself  in  his  paper;  he  lay  on 
his  sofa  with  his  eyes  closed,  astonished  at  the  strange 
weakness  which  laid  him  low,  for  he  had  always  been  so 
energetic  and  so  full  of  life,  bearing  all  his  sufferings 
without  altering  his  daily  routine  or  interrupting  his 
work.  The  friends  who  came  to  see  how  he  was  were 
alarmed  at  his  weakness,  and  advised  my  mother  not 
to  trust  too  much  in  Dr.  Bretzel,  our  usual  medical  man, 
but  to  have  another  opinion.  My  mother  sent  for  a 
specialist,  who  was  unable  to  come  till  the  evening.  He 
explained  that  the  weakness  was  the  inevitable  result 
of  the  two  haemorrhages,  and  might  pass  off  after  a  few 
days.  But  he  did  not  conceal  from  my  mother  that  the 
case  was  much  more  serious  than  Dr.  Bretzel  had 
supposed.  "  This  night  will  decide  everything,"  he 
said. 

Alas  !  when  my  father  woke  in  the  morning  after 
a  very  restless  night,  my  mother  realised  that  his  hours 
were  numbered.  My  father,  too,  realised  it.  As  always 
in  the  crises  of  his  life,  he  turned  to  the  Gospel.  He 
begged  his  wife  to  open  his  old  prison  Bible  and  to  read 
the  first  lines  on  which  her  eyes  should  fall.  Repressing 
her  tears,  she  read  aloud  :  "  But  John  forbade  Him, 
saying  :  I  have  need  to  be  baptised  of  Thee,  and  comest 
Thou  to  me  ?     And  Jesus  answering  said  unto  him  : 

T 


274  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

Hold  me  not  back  ^  for  thus  it  becometh  us  to  fulfil  all 
righteousness."  My  father  thought  for  a  moment  and 
then  said  to  his  wife  :  "  Did  you  hear?  Hold  me  not 
back.     My  hour  has  come.     I  must  die." 

Dostoyevsky  then  asked  for  a  priest,  made  his  con- 
fession and  received  the  Holy  Sacrament.  When  the 
priest  had  left  he  made  us  come  into  his  room,  and  taking 
our  little  hands  in  his,  he  begged  my  mother  to  read  the 
parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son.  He  listened  with  his  eyes 
closed,  absorbed  in  his  thoughts.  "  My  children,"  he 
said  in  his  feeble  voice,  "  never  forget  what  you  have  just 
heard.  Have  absolute  faith  in  God  and  never  despair 
of  His  pardon.  I  love  you  dearly,  but  my  love  is  nothing 
compared  with  the  love  of  God  for  all  those  He  has 
created.  Even  if  you  should  be  so  unhappy  as  to 
commit  a  crime  in  the  course  of  your  life,  never  despair 
of  God.  You  are  His  children;  humble  yourselves 
before  Him  as  before  your  father,  implore  His  pardon,  and 
He  will  rejoice  over  your  repentance,  as  the  father 
rejoiced  over  that  of  the  Prodigal  Son." 

He  embraced  us  and  gave  us  his  blessing;  we  left 
the  death-chamber,  weeping.  Friends  and  relations 
were  assembled  in  the  drawing-room,  for  the  news  of 
Dostoyevsky' s  dangerous  illness  had  spread  through  the 
city.  My  father  made  them  all  come  in  one  after 
the  other,  and  said  an  affectionate  word  to  each.  As  the 
day  wore  on  his  strength  diminished  sensibly.  Towards 
evening  he  had  another  haemorrhage,  and  began  to  lose 
consciousness.  The  doors  of  his  room  were  then  opened, 
and  his  friends  and  relatives  came  in  to  be  present  at 
his  death.  They  stood  round  without  speaking  or 
weeping,  careful  not  to  disturb  his  agony.  Only  my 
mother  wept  silently,  kneeling  by  the  sofa  on  which  her 

^  Thus  in  the  Russian  version  apparently,  as  appears  from  the 
context.     In  the  EngUsh  version  :   Suffer  it  to  be  so  now. — [Tr.] 


DEATH  OF  DOSTOYEVSKY         275 

husband  lay.  A  strange  sound  like  the  gurgling  of 
water  came  from  the  throat  of  the  dying  man,  his  breast 
heaved,  he  spoke  quickly  in  low  tones,  but  what  he  said 
no  one  could  understand.  Gradually  his  breathing 
became  quieter,  his  words  less  audible.  At  last  he  was 
silent.  .  .  . 

I  have  since  been  present  at  the  death  of  several 
friends  and  relatives,  but  none  was  so  radiant  as  that  of 
my  father.  His  was  a  truly  Christian  death,  such  as 
the  Orthodox  Church  desires  for  all  her  children — a  death 
without  pain  and  without  shame.  Dostoyevsky  had 
only  suffered  from  weakness ;  he  did  not  lose  conscious- 
ness till  the  last  moment.  He  saw  death  approaching 
without  fear.  He  knew  that  he  had  not  buried  his 
talent,  and  that  all  his  life  he  had  been  God's  faithful 
servant.  He  was  ready  to  appear  before  his  Eternal 
Father,  hoping  that  to  recompense  him  for  all  he  had 
suffered  in  this  life  God  would  give  him  another  great 
work  to  do,  another  great  task  to  accomplish. 

When  a  person  dies  in  Russia,  his  body  is  immediately 
washed.  He  is  then  dressed  in  his  finest  linen  and  his 
best  clothes  and  laid  on  a  table  covered  with  a  white 
cloth  until  his  coffin  is  ready.  Tall  candlesticks  are 
brought  from  the  nearest  church,  and  a  cloth  of  gold, 
which  is  laid  over  the  body.  Twice  a  day  the  priest 
comes  to  recite  the  panikida,  or  prayers  for  the  dead, 
which  he  says  accompanied  by  the  choir  of  his  church. 
The  friends  and  relatives  of  the  deceased  attend,  each 
holding  a  lighted  taper.  The  rest  of  the  day  and  all 
the  night  a  lector  of  the  church  or  a  nun  reads  the 
Psalms  aloud,  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  coffin.  The 
burial  takes  place  on  the  third  day,  sometimes  not  until 
the  fourth,  if  relations  who  wish  to  be  present  live  in 
distant  provinces  and  cannot  come  sooner. 


276  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

When  after  a  feverish  night  I  got  up  and  went,  my 
eyes  red  with  crying,  into  my  father's  room,  I  found  his 
body  lying  on  the  table,  his  hands  crossed  on  his  breast, 
supporting  an  icon  which  had  just  been  laid  upon  them. 
Like  many  nervous  children,  I  was  afraid  of  the  dead,  and 
would  not  go  near  them ;  but  I  had  no  fear  of  my  father. 
He  seemed  to  be  sleeping  on  his  cushion,  smiling  softly, 
as  if  he  were  looking  at  something  beautiful.  A  painter 
was  already  installed  by  his  side,  drawing  Dostoyevsky 
in  his  eternal  sleep.  The  papers  had  announced  my 
father's  death  that  morning,  and  all  his  friends  hastened 
to  be  present  at  the  first  panikida.  Deputations  of 
students  from  the  various  higher  schools  of  Petersburg 
followed  them.  They  arrived  accompanied  by  the  priest 
attached  to  their  school,  and  he  recited  the  prayers,  the 
students  chanting  the  responses.  The  tears  ran  down 
their  cheeks ;  they  sobbed  as  they  looked  on  the  motion- 
less face  of  their  beloved  master.  My  mother  was 
wandering  in  and  out  like  a  shadow,  her  eyes  swollen 
with  weeping.  She  realised  what  had  happened  so 
imperfectly  that  when  a  Court  official  came  from  the 
Emperor  Alexander  II  to  inform  her  that  the  State 
proposed  to  allow  her  a  pension,  and  provide  for  the 
education  of  her  children,  she  rose  joyfully  to  go  and  tell 
her  husband  the  good  news.  "  It  was  not  until  this 
moment,"  she  told  me  later,  "  that  I  realised  that  my 
husband  was  dead,  and  that  henceforth  I  should  live 
alone,  without  that  friend  to  sympathise  with  my  joys 
and  sorrows."  My  uncle  Jean,  who,  by  a  strange 
coincidence,  arrived  in  Petersburg  just  at  the  time  of 
Dostoyevsky's  death,  had  to  see  to  all  the  arrangements 
for  the  funeral.  He  asked  his  sister  where  she  wished 
her  husband  to  be  buried.  My  mother  then  recalled  a 
conversation  she  had  had  with  Dostoyevsky  on  the  day 
of  the  poet  Nekrassov's  funeral  some  years  before,  in 


DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY  277 

the  cemetery  of  Novodevitchie.i  My  father  made  a 
speech  over  the  open  grave  of  the  poet  and  came  home 
sad  and  depressed.  "  I  shall  soon  follow  Nekrassov," 
he  said  to  my  mother.  "  Pray  bury  me  in  the  same 
place.  I  do  not  wish  to  sleep  my  last  sleep  at  Volkovo 
among  the  Russian  writers.^  They  hated  me  and 
persecuted  me  all  my  life  and  made  it  very  bitter  to  me. 
I  should  like  to  rest  beside  Nekrassov,  who  was  always 
good  to  me,  who  was  the  first  to  tell  me  I  had  talent,  and 
who  did  not  forget  me  when  I  was  in  Siberia." 

My  mother,  seeing  he  was  sad  and  unhappy  tried  to 
distract  his  thoughts  by  jesting,  a  method  which  she 
generally  found  successful. 

"What  an  idea!"  she  said  gaily.  " Novodevitchie 
is  so  dismal  and  lonely  !  I  would  rather  bury  you  at 
the  Alexander  Nevsky  monastery." 

"  I  thought  only  generals  were  buried  there,"  ^  said 
my  father,  trying  to  jest  in  his  turn. 

' '  Well,  and  are  you  not  a  general  of  literature  ?  You 
certainly  have  a  right  to  lie  beside  them.  What  a 
splendid  funeral  you  shall  have !  Archbishops  shall 
celebrate  your  funeral  mass,  the  choir  of  the  Metropolitan 
shall  sing  it.  An  enormous  crowd  will  follow  your 
coffin,  and  when  the  procession  approaches  the  monastery 
the  monks  will  come  out  to  salute  you  !  " 

"  They  only  do  that  for  the  Tsar,"  said  my  father, 
amused  by  his  wife's  predictions. 

"  They  will  do  it  for  you  too.  Oh  !  you  shall  have 
magnificent  obsequies,  such  as  have  never  been  seen 
before  in  Petersburg." 

^  A  convent  for  nuns. 

2  The  majority  of  our  writers  are  buried  in  the  cemetery  of 
Volkovo.     There  is  a  place  in  it  called  the  Road  of  the  Writers. 

^  The  monastery  of  Alexander  Nevsky,  which  contains  the 
relics  of  the  patron  saint  of  Petersburg,  is  considered  the  aristo- 
cratic cemetery  of  the  city. 


278  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

My  father  laughed,  and  told  the  friends  who  came  to 
talk  about  Nekrassov's  funeral  of  this  fancy  of  his  wife's. 
Later,  many  persons  recalled  this  strange  prediction 
which  my  mother  had  made  in  jest. 

Remembering  this  conversation,  my  mother  begged 
my  uncle  Jean  to  go  with  their  brother-in-law,  M.  Paul 
Svatkovsky,  to  the  convent  of  Novodevitchie  and  buy 
a  grave  for  my  father  near  the  tomb  of  the  poet 
Nekrassov.  She  gave  him  all  the  money  she  had  in  the 
house  that  he  might  pay  in  advance  for  the  grave  and 
the  funeral  mass.  As  he  was  starting  my  uncle  noticed 
how  pale  and  mournful  our  childish  faces  were,  and  he 
asked  his  sister's  leave  to  take  us  to  the  convent.  "  A 
drive  in  a  sleigh  will  do  them  good,"  he  said,  looking 
pityingly  at  us. 

We  ran  to  dress  and  climbed  joyously  into  the  sleigh. 
The  fresh  air  and  the  wintry  sun  did  us  good  indeed,  and 
with  the  happy  carelessness  of  children  we  forgot  for  a 
while  the  cruel  loss  we  had  suffered.  The  convent  of 
Novodevitchie  is  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  close  to  the 
Arch  of  Narva.  It  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  been  in  a 
convent,  and  I  looked  curiously  at  the  silent  corridors, 
along  which  the  nuns  were  gliding  like  shadows.  We 
were  shown  into  the  reception-room;  the  Superior  of 
the  convent,  an  elderly  lady  dressed  in  black,  with  a  long 
veil  covering  her  head  and  her  dress,  entered,  looking 
cold  and  haughty.  M.  Svatkovsky  explained  that  the 
famous  writer  Dostoyevsky  had  expressed  a  wish  to  be 
buried  beside  the  poet  Nekrassov,  and,  knowing  that 
the  charges  were  rather  high,  he  begged  that  we  might 
be  allowed  to  have  the  grave  for  as  low  a  price  as  possible, 
in  consideration  of  the  small  means  left  to  us  by  my 
father.  The  Superior  made  a  scornful  gesture.  "  We 
nuns  do  not  belong  to  the  world,"  she  said  coldly,  "  and 
its  celebrities  are  nothing  to  us.     We  have  fixed  prices 


DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY  279 

for  burial  in  our  cemetery  and  we  cannot  change  them 
for  any  one."  And  this  humble  servant  of  Jesus  went 
on  to  name  an  exorbitant  price,  far  in  excess  of  the  modest 
sum  my  mother  could  offer.  In  vain  my  uncle  pleaded 
his  sister's  cause,  asking  that  she  might  be  allowed  to 
pay  the  money  by  instalments  in  the  course  of  the  year. 
The  Superior  declared  that  the  grave  should  not  be  dug 
until  the  full  price  had  been  paid.  He  had  finally  to 
get  up  and  take  leave  of  this  saintly  usurer. 

We  returned,  full  of  indignation,  to  tell  my  mother  of 
the  ill  success  of  our  mission.  "  How  unfortunate  !  " 
she  said  sadly.  "  I  should  like  to  have  buried  him  in  the 
place  he  himself  chose.  I  suppose  we  must  lay  him 
beside  our  little  Alexey  at  Ohta,  but  he  never  liked  that 
place."  It  was  agreed  that  my  uncle  should  go  to 
Ohta  the  following  day  to  buy  a  grave  and  arrange  with 
the  priest  for  a  funeral  mass. 

Towards  evening  my  mother  was  told  that  a  monk 
had  called  and  wished  to  speak  to  her.  He  came  on 
behalf  of  the  community  of  the  monastery  of  Alexander 
Nevsky,  who,  he  said,  were  great  admirers  of  Dos- 
toyevsky.  The  monks  wished  the  body  of  the  famous 
writer  to  rest  in  the  precincts  of  their  monastery.  They 
also  undertook  to  provide  the  funeral  mass,  which  they 
proposed  to  celebrate  with  great  solemnity  in  their 
largest  church.  My  mother  joyfully  accepted  this 
generous  offer.  When  the  monk  had  gone,  she  went 
into  her  room  and  suddenly  remembered  her  words 
to  her  husband  some  years  before  :  "I  will  bury  you 
in  the  monastery  of  Alexander  Nevsky." 

The  next  day,  Friday,  the  crowd  of  Dostoyevsky's 
admirers  invaded  our  modest  dwelhng  from  the  morning 
onwards.  It  was  very  varied :  writers,  ministers, 
students,  grand  dukes,  generals,  priests,  great  ladies 
and  poor  women  of  the  middle  classes  coming  in  turn  to 


280  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

salute  Dostoyevsky's  body,  and  sometimes  having  to 
wait  hours  for  their  turn.  The  heat  in  the  death-chamber 
was  so  great  that  the  candles  went  out  during  the 
panikida.  Magnificent  wreaths  of  flowers  adorned  with 
ribbons  bearing  touching  inscriptions,  sent  by  the  differ- 
ent ministries,  societies  and  schools  which  were  to  figure 
in  the  funeral  procession,  were  sent  in  such  numbers  that 
we  did  not  know  where  to  put  them.  The  little  wreaths 
and  bouquets  brought  by  Dostoyevsky's  friends  were 
placed  close  to  the  coffin  in  which  my  father's  body  had 
just  been  placed.  His  admirers  kissed  his  hands,  weeping 
and  begging  for  a  flower  or  a  leaf  to  keep  in  memory  of 
him.  Aided  by  our  little  friends  who  had  come  to 
watch  with  us  beside  the  coffin,  my  brother  and  I 
distributed  flowers  all  day  long  to  the  unknown  persons 
who  crowded  round  us. 

On  the  Saturday  an  immense  crowd  filled  the  two 
streets  at  the  angle  of  which  our  house  stood.  From 
our  windows  we  looked  down  on  a  sea  of  human  heads, 
undulating  like  waves,  on  which  the  wreaths  and  ribbons 
carried  by  the  students  floated.  A  hearse  was  in  readi- 
ness to  take  the  remains  of  Dostoyevsky  tothe  monastery. 
His  admirers  would  not  allow  the  coffin  to  be  placed  in 
it.  They  took  it  and  carried  it  in  relays  to  the  burial- 
place.  In  accordance  with  the  custom  the  widow  and 
the  orphans  followed  it  on  foot.  As  the  way  to  the 
Alexander  Nevsky  monastery  was  long  and  our  childish 
strength  was  soon  exhausted,  friends  occasionally  took 
us  out  of  the  cortege  into  carriages.  "  Never  forget 
the  splendid  funeral  Russia  gave  your  father,"  they  said 
to  us.  When  at  last  the  procession  approached  the 
monastery,  the  monks  came  out  of  the  great  door  to 
meet  my  father,  who  was  henceforth  to  rest  in  the  midst 
of  their  community.  This  is  an  honour  they  reserve  for 
the  Tsars;  but  they  also  paid  it  to  the  famous  Russian 


DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY  281 

writer,  the  faithful  and  respectful  son  of  the  Orthodox 
Church.  Once  more  my  mother's  prediction  was 
fulfilled. 

It  was  too  late  to  begin  the  funeral  mass,  and  it  was 
put  off  till  the  following  day.  The  coffin  was  placed  in 
the  middle  of  the  church  of  the  Holy  Spirit;  after  a 
short  service  we  returned  to  our  home,  worn  out  with 
fatigue  and  emotion.  My  father's  friends  stayed  for  a 
time  to  keep  watch  over  the  crowd.  Evening  approached, 
it  became  dark;  the  crowd  gradually  dispersed,  pre- 
paring to  return  the  next  day  for  the  burial.  Yet 
Dostoyevsky  was  not  left  in  solitude.  The  students 
of  Petersburg  did  not  forsake  him;  they  determined  to 
watch  with  their  adored  master  during  his  last  night  on 
earth.  We  heard  afterwards  what  had  happened  that 
night  from  the  Metropolitan  of  Petersburg,  who,  accord- 
ing to  custom,  lived  in  the  Alexander  Nevsky  monastery. 
A  few  days  after  the  funeral  my  mother  went  to  see 
him,  to  thank  him  for  the  magnificent  ceremony  the 
monks  had  given  to  my  father,  and  she  took  us  with  her. 
The  Metropolitan  blessed  us,  and  then  began  to  describe 
his  impressions  of  the  students'  vigil.  "  On  Saturday 
evening,"  he  said,  "  I  went  to  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  salute  Dostoyevsky' s  body  in  my  turn.  The 
monks  stopped  me  at  the  door,  telling  me  that  the 
Church,  which  I  supposed  to  be  empty,  was  full  of 
people.^  I  accordingly  went  up  to  the  small  chapel 
which  is  on  the  second  floor  of  the  adjacent  church,  its 
windows  looking  into  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
I  spent  part  of  the  night  there  watching  the  students, 
without  being  seen  by  them.  They  were  kneeling  and 
praying,  and  as  they  prayed  they  wept  and  sobbed 
aloud.     The  monks  began  to  read  the  Psalms  at  the  foot 

1  The  Russian  Metropolitans  are  very  great  personages,  and 
only  appear  in  public  on  solemn  occasions. 


282  FYODOR  DOSTOYEVSKY 

of  the  coffin.  The  students  took  the  book  from  them, 
and  themselves  read  the  Psalms  in  turn.  Never  have  I 
heard  them  read  in  such  a  manner  !  They  read  in  voices 
trembling  with  emotion,  putting  their  hearts  into  every 
word  they  uttered.  And  they  tell  me  these  young  men 
are  atheists,  and  that  they  hate  our  Church.  What 
magic  power  had  Dostoyevsky  that  he  could  thus  bring 
them  back  to  God?" 

The  power  was  that  which  Jesus  gave  to  all  His 
disciples.  The  unhappy  Russian  Church,  paralysed 
since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great,  had  lost  that  sacred 
power.  Now  that  she  is  at  length  deUvered  from  her 
bondage,  and,  since  the  Revolution,  has  been  drowned 
in  the  blood  of  her  martyrs,  the  priests  and  monks 
tortured  and  put  to  death  by  the  Bolsheviks,  she  will 
rise  to  a  new  life  and  become  as  strong  as  in  the  times  of 
the  ancient  Moscovite  Patriarchs. 

On  the  day  of  the  burial,  Sunday,  the  1st  of  February, 
all  Dostoyevsky's  admirers  who  were  at  work  during 
the  week  took  advantage  of  the  holiday  to  come  to  the 
church  and  pray  for  the  repose  of  his  soul.  Very  early 
in  the  morning  an  enormous  crowd  invaded  the  peaceful 
monastery  of  Alexander  Nevsky,  which  lies  on  the  banks 
of  the  Neva  and  forms  a  little  town  of  itself,  with  its 
numerous  churches,  its  three  burial-grounds,  its  gardens, 
its  school,  seminary  and  ecclesiastical  academy.  The 
monks,  seeing  the  crowd  increasing  every  moment, 
filling  the  gardens  and  cemeteries,  and  climbing  up  on 
the  monuments  and  iron  railings,  were  alarmed  and 
appealed  to  the  police,  who  at  once  closed  the  great 
gates.  Those  who  came  later  took  their  stand  on  the 
square  in  front  of  the  monastery,  and  remained  there 
until  the  end  of  the  ceremony,  hoping  to  be  able  to  get 
in  by  some  means,  or  at  any  rate  to  hear  the  funeral 
chants  as  the  coffin  was  being  carried  to  the  grave. 


DEATH   OF   DOSTOYEVSKY  283 

Towards  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  drove  up  to  the 
great  gate,  and  were  surprised  to  find  it  closed.  My 
mother  got  out  of  the  carriage,  shrouded  in  her  widow's 
veil,  and  holding  us  by  the  hand.  A  police  officer 
barred  the  way.  "  No  one  else  is  to  be  admitted," 
he  said  severely. 

"What?"  cried  my  mother  in  astonishment.  "I 
am  Dostoyevsky's  widow,  and  they  are  waiting  for  me 
to  begin  the  mass." 

"  You  are  the  sixth  widow  of  Dostoyevsky  who  has 
tried  to  get  in.  No  more  lies  !  I  shall  not  allow  any 
one  else  to  pass." 

We  looked  at  each  other  in  perplexity,  not  knowing 
what  to  do.  Fortunately,  friends  were  on  the  watch 
for  us ;  they  hastened  to  the  gate  and  had  us  admitted. 
We  had  great  difficulty  in  making  our  way  through  the 
crowd  in  the  precincts,  and  still  more  in  entering  the 
church,  which  was  full  to  overflowing.  When  at  last 
we  reached  the  place  reserved  for  us,  the  mass  began. 
It  was  celebrated  by  the  Archbishop,  who  pronounced 
funeral  orations,  and  chanted  by  the  Metropolitan's 
choir.  In  the  cemetery,  it  was  the  turn  of  the  writers ; 
the  speeches  they  delivered  beside  the  open  grave, 
according  to  custom,  lasted  several  hours.  My  mother's 
prediction  was  Hterally  fulfilled.  Never  had  there  been 
such  a  funeral  in  Petersburg.^ 

Yet  one  important  detail  of  the  funeral  mass  had  been 
omitted.  In  Russia  it  is  customary  for  the  coffin  to 
remain  open  during  the  mass;  towards  the  end,  the 
relatives  and  friends  approach  and  give  the  corpse  their 
farewell  kiss.  Dostoyevsky's  coffin  was  closed.  On  the 
day  of  the  funeral  my  uncle  and  M.  Pobedonoszev,  our 

1  Dostoyevsky  had  himself  foreshadowed  certain  details  ot 
his  death  and  burial  when  he  described  the  death  of  the  staretz 
Zossima  in  The  Brothers  Karamazov. 


284  FYODOR   DOSTOYEVSKY 

guardian,  went  to  the  monastery  very  early  in  the 
morning.  They  opened  the  coffin,  and  found  Dostoy- 
evsky  much  changed.  Fearing  that  the  sight  of  his 
altered  face  would  be  very  distressing  to  his  widow  and 
children,  M.  Pobedonoszev  desired  the  monks  not  to 
open  the  coffin.  My  mother  could  never  altogether 
forgive  him  for  this.  "  What  difference  would  it  have 
made  to  me?  "  she  said  bitterly.  "  However  changed, 
he  would  still  have  been  my  beloved  husband.  And  he 
was  laid  in  his  grave  without  my  farewell  kiss  and 
blessing." 

For  my  part,  I  was  later  deeply  grateful  to  my 
guardian  for  having  spared  me  the  mournful  sight.  I 
was  glad  to  have  the  memory  of  my  father  lying  as  if 
sleeping  peacefully  in  his  coffin,  and  smiling  at  some 
beautiful  sight  before  him.  Yet  it  might  have  been 
better  for  me  to  see  his  decomposing  body.  It  would 
have  destroyed  the  strange  dream  that  obsessed  me 
after  the  funeral,  at  first  giving  me  much  joy  and  later 
much  pain.  I  dreamed  that  my  father  was  not  dead, 
that  he  had  been  buried  in  a  lethargy,  that  he  would  soon 
wake,  call  on  the  keepers  of  the  cemetery  for  help  and 
return  to  us.  I  imagined  our  joy,  our  laughter  and  our 
kisses.  I  was  the  child  of  an  imaginative  writer,  I  had 
a  desire  to  create  scenes,  gestures  and  words,  and  this 
childish  make-believe  gave  me  great  pleasure.  However, 
by  degrees,  as  the  days  and  weeks  passed,  reason  awoke 
in  my  youthful  brain  and  killed  my  illusions,  telling  me 
that  a  human  being  could  not  live  long  under  the  earth 
without  air  and  food,  that  my  father's  lethargy  was 
lasting  very  long,  and  that  perhaps  he  was  really  dead. 
Then  I  suffered  cruelly.  .  .  . 

And  yet  I  was  right.  My  childish  dream  was  not  all 
illusion;  my  father  was  not  dead.  He  came  back  later 
when  I  was  old  enough  to  read  and  study  his  works,  and 


DEATH  OF  DOSTOYEVSKY         285 

has  never  left  me.  Thanks  to  his  dear  presence,  I 
have  never  been  afraid  in  my  life.  I  know  that  my 
father  watches  over  me,  intercedes  for  me  with  God,  and 
that  our  Saviour  will  not  refuse  him  what  he  asks.  As 
I  have  written  I  have  begged  him  to  guide  and  inspire 
me,  and  above  all  to  prevent  me  from  saying  things  that 
would  have  displeased  him.  May  he  have  heard  my 
prayer  ! 


Printed    in    Great   Britain   by 

RiOHAED  Clay  &  Sons,  Limited, 

Bdnoay,  Suetolk. 


INDEX 


Abo,  Cathedral  of,  128 

Adolescent  (The),  Dostoyevsky,  74 

Agriculture,  Academy  of,  163-65 

Aksakov,  247 

Alexander  II,  reforms  of,  57,  97 ; 
and  Dostoyevsky,  99;  war  on  the 
Turks,  233;  pension  to  Madame 
Dostoyevsky,  276 

Ill,    and    Pobedonoszev,    233 ; 

and  Dostoyevsky,  245-46 

Alexander  Nevsky  monastery,  Dos- 
toyevsky buried  at,  277  and  note  ^, 
279-85 

Arabrosius,  monk,  232 

America,  Russian  policy  of,  264,  265 

American  writers  in  Germany,  im- 
pressions, 227  note  ^ 

Andrey,  character,  176 

the  family  name  of,  16-17 

Anitchkov  Palace,  245 

Anna  Karenina,  Tolstoy,  221,  223, 
227  note  ^ 

Aristocracy,  the  Russian,  208-10, 
222-23 

Ai-no,  the,  158 

Artistes  in  Russia,  customs  regarding, 
129 

Asenkova,  the  actress,  126-27,  142 

Asia,  Russia  in,  Dostoyevsky's  idea, 
259-60;  Russia's  oriental  polic3% 
263 

Astrakhan,  95 

Baden-Baden,  155 
Ballet,  confectioner,  194 

the  Russian,  202 

Balzac,  13,  31,  53 

Baranov,  Count,  99 

Bards,  rustic,  200-1 

Barnaoul,  93  note  ^ 

Belinsky,  critic,  and  Poor  Folks,  42, 

46;     friendship    for    Dostoyevsky, 

210,  213-14 
Berlin,  106,  153 
Bers,  Dr.,  173  note  \  223 
Bible,   Dostoyevsky's  study  of  the, 

80-82 
Biron,  the  Princes,  44 
Boboli  Gardens,  Florence,  158 
Bolshevism,      Tolstoy      and,      220; 


Russia's  struggle  against,  250-51 ; 

European  policy  towards,  265 
Boris  Godunov,  Dostoyevsky,  42  note  ^ 
Boyards,    the    Russian,    251,    263; 

flight    to     Lithuania,     2-3;     and 

titles,  225-26 
Bretzel,  Dr.,  273 
Bronze  Horse  {The),  opera,  203 
Brothers  Karamazov  {The),  Dosto3'ev- 

sky,  2Snote'^,  34-35,  77,  80,  110, 

176,  178,  230-31,  238-39,  243,  258, 

283,  note  ^ 
Bruhls  in  Dresden,  153 
Byzantine   culture,    development   in 

Russia,  75,  77 

Cascine,  Florence,  158 

Catherine  II,  208 

Catholic       Church,       Dostoyevsky's 

interest  in  the,  35,  255 
Clergy,  influence  on  Dostoyev- 
sky, 11 ;  as  educationists,  14  note  ^, 

20,  126 
Faith,   retained   by  the   Poles, 

5-6,  14 
Cesarevna,  the  title,  244  7iote  ^ 
Champs  Elysees,  casinos,  147 
Children's   books   not  given   to   the 

Dostoyevsky  children,  205 
Citizen     {The),      88  note'\      172-73, 

182  note  ^ 
Clementine,  Princess,  139 
Cologne  Cathedral,  106,  118,  192 
Communism  in  Russia,  135 
Coni,     Senator,     on     Dostoyevsky's 

speech,  247-48 
Constantine,    Grand    Duke,  184  and 

note  1,  245-46 
Convicts,  the,  and  Dostoyevsky,  67-7 1 
Corneille,  31,  127 
Corporal    punishment,    abolition   of, 

210  note  ^ 
Corps  of  Pages,  270  note  ^ 
"  Count,"  the  title  in  Russia,  222, 

226  ajid  note  ^ 
Crime  and  Punishmeni,  Dostoyevsky, 

111,  113,  12^  and  note^,  125,  143, 

186 
Crimean  War,  98 
Czechs,  the,  160 


287 


288 


INDEX 


Danilevsky,  210,  218 

Darovoye,  estate  of,  18,  19,  25,  26, 
32-34,  62,  271 

Darwin,  works  of,  135-36 

"  Dastarhan,"  term  used  in  the  East, 
193  and  note  ^ 

Dekabrists,  the,  61  and  note  ^  67,  87, 
275 

Dibmar,  Emilie,  50 

Dick,  ancestor  of  Tolstoy,  225 

Dickens,  Charles,  53,  203 

Dick- Tolstoys,  the,  225-26 

Divorce,  Russian  customs  regarding, 
120  and  note  ^ 

Dmitri,  Grand  Duke,  184 

Dmitrievna,  Madame  Marie,  mar- 
riage with  Dostoyevsky,  91-102; 
illness,  110-11;  otherwise  men- 
iioned,  113,  144,  146,  231 

Dolgoruky,  Prince,  99 

Donkeys,  German,  194-95 

Dostoyeve,  town  of,  6 

Dostoyevsky,  Aimee,  birth,  161 ; 
names,  162  and  note  ^ 

Alexandra,  32,  121,  170,  268-69, 

271 

Alexey,  179-81,  279 

Andrey,  brother  of  Fyodor,  20, 

22,  25;  school,  32;  liis  son,  37; 
and  the  Petrachevsky  plot,  55-56 ; 
love  for  Fyodor,  121 

Andrey,  great-grandfather,  9 

Barbara,  36-37,  271 

Fyodor,  origin  of  family,  7-10 ; 

influences  forming  his  character, 
10-11;  temperament,  13;  child- 
hood, 18-26;  adolescence,  27-37; 
a  Lithuanian  Schliahtitch,  38-39; 
and  Grigorovitch,  38,  41-42,  46; 
barters  his  birthright,  40-41 ; 
and  Turgenev,  41,  45  and  note^; 
friendships,  45-46;  Lithuanian  in- 
fluence, 46-47;  epilepsy,  49  and 
note  •^ ;  attitude  towards  women, 
60-51,  185-86,  241-45;  the  Petra- 
chevsky conspiracy,  52-61 ;  prison 
life,  62-71 ;  reference  to  his 
memoirs,  68;  association  with 
the  Convicts,  68-69;  what  the 
Convicts  taught  him,  72-82;  a 
soldier,  83-90 ;  on  his  punishment, 
86-87;  a  photograph,  88,  96; 
his  first  marriage,  91-102 ;  develop- 
ment of  the  epilepsy,  92-93; 
efforts  to  return  to  Petersburg, 
98;    and   Pauline   N ,    104-6, 


108-9,  112;    a  literary  friendship, 
113-16;    pays  his  brother's  liabili- 
ties,    117-18;      as    head     of    his 
family,  117-23;   the  first  day  with 
Anna    Ivanovitch,     139-40;      be- 
trothal,      140-^7;       his      second 
marriage,      148-52;       travels      in 
Europe,    153-68;    wish  to   return 
to    Petersburg,    167-68;     reliance 
on    his    wife,     171-72;     back    in 
Petersburg,      174;       the      eternal 
dreaminess,      176-78;      the     first 
Russian   feminist,    185-86;     as   a 
reader,     186-87;      in     his    home, 
189-98;     as    a    father,    199-206; 
and  the  theatre,  202-3;    and  the 
Russian    manners,    212-13;     and 
the    literary    salons,    213-15;     his 
love     of     Russia,     218-19;      and 
Tolstoy,  218-19;   the  moral  chaos 
of  his  novels,   219;    attitude   to- 
wards   the    Turks,    220-21;     the 
iSlavophil,   233-37 ;    and  Countess 
Alexis  Tolstoy,  238-39;    readings 
at    her    salon,    243-44;     and    the 
Cesarevna,    243-45;    the   Pushkin 
festival,    247-57;     neglect    of    his 
Lithuanian  origin,  253-54 ;  his  work 
in  Russia,  256-57 ;  death,  268-75. 
Works : — 
Adolescent  (The),  74 
Boris  Godunov,  42  note  ^ 
Brothers   Karanmzov,    28    note  ^, 
34-35,  77,  80,  110,  176,  178, 
230-31,     238-39,     243,     258, 
283  note  ^ 
Citizen,  Journal,  88  note  ^,  172- 

73,  182  note  ^ 
Crime  and  Punishment,  111,  113, 

124-25,  143,  186 
Double  {The),  45,  48  and  note  ^, 

51,  97 
Eternal  Husband  {The),  101,  122, 

146  note  ^ 
Gambler   {The),    40-41,    109-10, 
125,  140,  141,  143,  155,  254-55 
House  of  the  Dead,  67,  81  note, 

85,  97,  99-100,  103,  218 
Idiot  {The),  60,  63-67,  96,  110, 

124  note  i,  158,  202,  267 
Insulted  and  Injured,  103-4,  138 
Jotirnal  of  the  Writer,  22,  23 
note\  56,  57,  71,  76-77, 
182  note  \  183,  185,  203,  215, 
217,  220,  221,  224,  230,  232, 
255,  258-60,  273 


INDEX 


289 


Dostoyevsky,  Works  (contd.) — 

Little  Hero  {The),  57 

Mary  Stuart,  42  note  ^ 

Netotchka  Nesvanova,  43,  44,  51 

Poor  Folks,  42  and  note  S  43,  45, 
47,  69,  71,  99 

Possessed  (The),    110,    165,    166 
note  \  174,  176,  216-17 

Selo  Stepantchikovo,  96-97 

Uncle's  Dream  (The),  96-97,  267 

Fyodor,    his    son,    birth,    168; 

and  Paul,  197 
Madame,  influence  on  her  hus- 
band, 38-39,  55  note  ^ ;  character, 
132-33;  girlhood,  134-39;  be- 
trothal, 140-47;  marriage,  148-52; 
journal,  153;  travels  in  Europe, 
153-68;  death  of  first  baby, 
156-57;  birth  of  second  child, 
161 ;  home  sickness,  166-67 ;  birth 
of  Fyodor,  168;  and  Paul,  169, 
197;  business  qualities,  171-72; 
editorial  work,  173;  Alexey,  179- 
81;  in  the  home,  191-93,  197; 
on  the  Russian  manners  of  the 
time,  212;  absence  from  the 
Pushkin  festival,  258;  pension. 
270-71;  death  and  burial  of 
Dostoyevsky,  272-85 

Marie,  daughter  of  Mihail,  119 

and  note  ^ 

Mihail,  brother  of  Fyodor,   11, 

13.  24  a?id  note  ^,  27 ;  at  Reval, 
28;  correspondence  with  Fyodor, 
31,  33  note  S  41,  48  note  \  80,  85, 
88  note\  92-93,  213;  drinking 
habits,  36-37,  106;  his  wife  and 
family,  50,  119-20;  and  the 
Petrachevsky  plot,  55-57,  60; 
Fyodor's  affection  for,  99,  101-2, 
110  note'^;  the  Vremya,  103; 
death,  117;  his  debts  paid  by 
Fyodor,  118-19,  171,  269;  home 
of,  195;  E-poha,  269. 

Mihail,  father  of  Fyodor,  7,  9, 

13;  home  of,  18-20;  education 
of  his  sons,  20-22;  attitude 
towards  Russia,  22-24;  portrait, 
24-25 ;  religion,  25-26 ;  meanness, 
31-33;  murder,  33  and  note^,  34; 
likeness  to  the  character  of  Fyodor 
Karamazov,  34-35;  the  family 
readings,  56 

Nicolai,   20,   32,   36,    121,    123, 

170,  269 
Sophie,  156 


Dostoyevsky  Stepane,  8 

Vera,  24  note  i,  32 ;    her  home 

in  Moscow,  122;  visit  to  Dostoyev- 
sky, 268,  271-72;  her  daughter 
Marie,  122-23;  her  daughter 
Sophie,  122-23,  156 

Dostoyevsky  Museum,  Moscow,  6, 
81  note  \  173 

Donhle  (The),  45,  48  and  note  ^  51,  97 

Dresden,  153-55,  161-67 

Duma,  mixed  blood  in  the,  264 

Durov,  83-84,  88 

Edrizy,  205 

Emigres,  Russian,  265 

Ems,  194,  203,  228,  258 

Engineers  School,  38,  68  ?io/ei,  98,  231 

England,  colonising  policy,  262;  her 
future,  Dostoyevsky's  prophecy, 
107  note  ^ 

Englishwomen,  Dostoyevsky's  opin- 
ion on,  107 

Epantchin,  General,  character,  66,  67 

Epileptics,  cases  of,  50-51 

Epoha,  117,  150,  269 

Eternal  Husband  (The),  101,  122, 
146  note  ^ 

Europe,  Russia  and,  Dostoyevsky's 
idea,  259-60 

Ferdinand  of  Coburg,  139 

Finno-Turks,  the,  253 

Florence,  157,  158,  160 

Fontanka  river,  29 

Four  Hundred  Bible  Stories,  231 

Fourier,  theories,  55 

France,     Dostoyevsky's    admiration 

for   French   literature,    20-21,    21 

note^,  147 
Franco-Prussian  war,  115 
Free  love,  105,  135-36 
Fyodorovna,  Grand  Duchess  Marie, 

243-45 

Gagarin,  Prince,  57 

Gambler  (The),  Dostoyevsky,  40-41, 
109-10, 125, 140-41, 143, 155,254-55 

Geneva,  107,  155-57 

German  characteristics,  227-28,  atti- 
tude towards  suffering,  227  note  ^ ; 
sects  in  Russia,  228-29 

"  German,"  use  of  the  term,  3  note  ^ 

Germanic  conquest  of  Lithuania, 
5  and  notes  ^-^;  nations,  decay 
foretold,  234-36 

Gerngross,  General,  93  7wtp  ^ 


290 


INDEX 


Glinka,  the  composer,  173,  202 

Gobineau,  Count,  252 

Goethe,  31 

Gogol,   style,    13,    47,    48,   96,    270; 

Taras  Bulla,  201 
Golitzin,  Lithuanian  origin,  15  note  ^ 
Gontsharov,  210,  256,  270 
Gothic  lines,  Dostoyevsky's  craving 

for,  191-92 
Grand     Dukes     and     the     Russian 

nobility,  209 ;  titles  of,  244  note  ^ 
Grand  Inquisitor  {The),  35 
Grandet,    Eugenie,    translations    of, 

40  note  ^ 
Greek  influence  in  Ukrainia,  12 
Gribbe,  Colonel,  house  of,  175-78 
Griboledov,  270;    The  Misfortune  of 

Being  Too  Clever,  265-67 
Grigorovitch,   friendship  of,   31,   38, 

41-42,  46,  88,  210 
Grossen  Garten,  Dresden,  153-54 
Grushenka,  character,  176 
Guedimin,  Prince,  4 

d'  Hauteville,  Comtes,  15 
Heiden,  Countess,  242-43 
Herzen,  Alexander,  107 
Historical  Museum,  Moscow,  81  note  ^, 

173 
History  of  Russia,  Karamzin,  22  and 

note  1,  75,  77,  204 
Holy  Alliance,  237 
House  of  the  Dead,  Dostoyevsky,  67, 

81  note  \  85,  97,  99-100,  103,  218 

Idiot  (The),  Dostoyevsky,  60,  63-67, 
96,  110,  124  note^,  158,  202,  267 

Igor,  son  of  Rurik,  204 

Ilmen,  Lake  of,  175,  176 

Immigrants,  Russian,  225 

Imperial  Guard,  the,  27 

Theatres,  rules,  126 

Independance  BUge  (U),  155  note''- 

Insulted  and  Injiired  (The),  103-4,  138 

Intellectuals,  speech  of  Dostoyevsky 
to  the,  248-49,  256-57;  his 
appeal  in  the  Journal,  259-60 

Internationale,  the,  184,  185 

losef.  Father,  232 

Issaieff,  Captain,  91,  92,  111 

Madame  Paul,  198 

Paul,  relations  with  Dostoyev- 
sky, 94,  95,  99,  101-2,  111,  121-23, 
269 ;  and  the  marriage  of  Dostoy- 
evsky, 145-46;  and  Madame 
Dostoyevsky,  169-70;  behaviour 
of,  195-97 


Ivan  the  Terrible,  3 

Ivanov,  murder  of,  163-66 

Ivanovitch,  Jean,  38,  134;  in  Dres- 
den, 163-64;  and  the  Netchaieff 
affair,  165  andnote^,  166;  marriage, 
171;  a  visit  to,  176;  burial 
arrangements  for  Dostoyevsky, 
276-78,  283 

M.,     and     Asenkova,     126-28, 

142;  his  marriage,  128-33;  ad- 
miration for  Dostoyevsky,  137-39; 
love  for  the  little  Anna,  138-39 

Mile.    See  Dostoyevsky,  Mme. 

Mme.,       128-33;        and      her 

daughter,  136-39,  143-44;  finds 
money  for  the  European  journey, 
151-52;  visit  to  Geneva,  156-57; 
to  Dresden,  162-65;  her  home 
with  Jean,  171 

J Georges,  115 

J Mme.     See   Korvin-Kronkov- 

sky,  Anna 

JageUon,  house  of,  15  note  ^ 

Janovsky,  Dr.,  49  note  ^ 

Jaroslav,  204 

Jesuits,  war  on  the  Orthodox 
monastic  houses,  5-6;  influence, 
11,  26;  college  in  Petersburg,  126 
and  note  ^ 

Jews,  Dostoyevsky  and,  270 

Journal  of  the  Writer,  Dostoyevsky, 
22,  23  note'-,  56,  57,  71,  76-77, 
182  note  i,  183,  185,  203,  215,  217, 
220,  221,  224,  230,  232,  255,  258- 
60,  273 

Joy  to  Him  Who  Loves  to  Travel, 
Edrizy,  205 

K Prince,  character,  267 

K Serge,  266 

Karamazov,  Aliosha,  character,  232 

Dmitri,  character,  39,  59,  230; 

Katie,  his  fiancee,  115-16 

Fyodor,  character,  34-35 

Ivan,  character,  54,  106,  130 

Karamzin,  works  of,  22  and  note  ^, 
75,  77,  204 

Karlsbad,  153 

Karmazinov,  216-17 

Katkov,  publisher,  150-51,  221 

Korvin-Kronkovsky,  Anna,  friend- 
ship with  Dostoyevsky,  11.3-16, 
144,  146 

M.,  113-16 

Sophie,  113  and  note  ^ 


INDEX 


291 


Kotelenitsky,  family  of,  24  note  ^ 
Vassil,  24  note  ^ 


Kovalevsky,  113 
Kraft,  character,  74 
Krementshug,  126 
Kremlin  visits,  22,  77 
Krilov,  fables  of,  266 
Krivopichin,  General,  29  note  ^ 
Kumanin,  Aunt,  40,  150,  172  note'^; 

estate  of,  268,  271 
Kurbsky,  Prince,  2-3 
Kusnetsk,  92-94 

Ladoga,  Lake,  132 

Leman,  Lake,  157 

Lermont,  255 

Lermontov,  poet,  201,  255,  256,  270 

Les  Miserahles,  47 

Letters,  Society  of,  247 

Leuchtenberg,  Dukes  of,  134,  163 

Lithuania,    Norman    influence,    1-3, 

3  note  ^,  4  and  note  -^ ;   German  and 

Polish   conquest,   5  and  notes  ^-- ; 

nomad     intellectuals     of,     13-14; 

emigration    of    the    intellectuals, 

14-15;    forests  of,   23;    origin  of 

the  Dostoyevsky,  46-47 
Lithuania  Past  and.  Present,  Vidunas, 

3,  8-9,  16,  22,  84,  147,  214  note  ^ 
Lithuanian   characteristics,    shjTiess, 

22-23;    elasticity,  84;    regard  for 

the      family      honour,       118-21; 

fidelity,  147;   reticence,  214  note'^; 

the  idea  neglected  by  Dostoyevsky, 

253-54 

Schliahta,  the,  6,  19,  208 

Little  Hero  (The),  Dostoyevsky,  57 
Luther,     religion     of,     imposed     on 

Lithuania,  6 

Maikov,    letter    from    Dostoyevsky, 

73;    relations   with   Dostoyevsky, 

103,  197  note  \  210 
Mamelukes,  the,  94-95,  196 
Maria,  Grand-Duchess,  134 
Marmeladov,  monologue,  186 
Marriage   customs,    Russian,   50-51 ; 

civil  marriages,  135 
Marseillaise,  the,  104 
Marshal  of  the  nobility,  position  in 

Russia,  208-9 
Mary  Sttiart,  Dostoyevsky,  42  note  ^ 
Mestchersky,  Prmce,  172-73 
Metropolitan  of  Petersburg  and  Mme. 

Dostoyevsky,  281  and  note  ^,  282 
Michelet  quoted,  242  note  ^ 


Mickiewicz,  14  note  ^ 

Mihail  Romanoff,  Tsar,  2  ??o/e  ^ 

Milan  Cathedral,  157,  192 

Military  Engineering,  Department  of, 

38 
Military   Engineers,    School   of,    the 

Dostoyevsky  at,  27-33 
Military  School,  Petersburg,  231 
Miliukov,     A.,     125;      proposal     to 

Dostoyevsky,  254-55 
Miltopeus,    Mile.    Maria   Anna.     See 

Ivanovitch,  Mme. 
Minsk,  Government  of,  Dostoyevsky 

family  from,  6 
Misfortune     of    Being     too     Clever, 

Griboiedor,  265-67 
Mishkin,  Prince,  rhararter,  63,  65-67, 

70  note  i,  93,  96,  124  note  ^ 
Moki-o6,  39,  59 
Monarchy,  the  Russian,  the  idea  of 

the     people      concerning,     78-79; 

Dostoyevsky  a  Monarchist.  79-80 
Monasteries,  Orthodox,  77-78 
Mongolian  influence  in  Russia,  261-65 
Moscow,   the   Dostoyevsky  Museum 

at,  6,  81  note^,  173;    University, 

7 ;     visits   to   the   cathedrals,    22, 

77;    journey  to    Petersburg,    28; 

the  retreat  from,  95;   the  Pushkin 

festival,  228,  247-57 
Moujiks,    emigration    of,    14;     and 

Tolstoy,  228 
Muscovy,  founding  of,  204;    Musco- 
vite tradition,  263 

N.  Pauline,  the  student,  104-6, 
108-13;  and  Dostoyevsky,  144, 
231;  a  visit  from,  187-88,  188 
note  ^ 

Naples,  109 

Napoleon,  Mamelukes  of,  94-95,  196 

Narva,  Arch  of,  278 

Nastasia  Philipovna,  character,  66, 
93,  110 

Nations,  League  of,  235-36 

Nekrassov,  poet,  and  Dostoyevsky, 
41-42 ;  publication  of  Poor  Folks  in 
his  Review,  42,  45,  46,  69;  The 
Wretched,  69-71 ;  poems  of,  96,  210 ; 
origm,  255-56;  grave  of,  276-77 

"  Nemzi,"  term,  3  note  ^ 

Netchaieff  affair,  164-65,  165  7iofe  i 

Netchaiev,  Marie,  married  Mihail 
Dostoyevsky,  18,  20,  24;  portrait, 
24-25;  influence  over  her  hus- 
band, 31-32 


292 


INDEX 


Netotchka   Nesvanova,    Dostoyevsky, 

43-44,  51 
Nicolaievitch,  Grand  Duke  Constan- 

tine,  184 
Nicolas    I,    99-100,    178;     and    the 

death  sentence,   59-60;    and   the 

nobUity,  209 

II,  261 

Nil  of  Sorsk,  Saint,  210 

Nilsson,  Christine,  128 

Nobility,  Russian  hereditary,  208-10 ; 

"  personal,"  210  note  ^ 
Norman  character,  the,  270 

culture  in  Europe,  204-5 

influence     in     Lithuania,     1-3, 

3  note  1,  4  note  ^,  15-16;  in  Russia, 

74 
Nobility,  nomad  character,  15- 

16 
Novinskoye,  24  note  ^ 
Novodevitchie,  cemetery  of,  277-79 

Occidentals,  Turgenev  and  the,  216- 
17 ;  and  Pushkin,  247 

Oehta,  cemetery,  180,  279 

Odoevsky,  Prince,  salon  of,  43 

Ohlin,  pupils  of,  125-26,  136-39 

Omsk,  67,  68,  81,  83,  178 

Opera,  the,  202 

Optina  Pustin,  monastery,  visit  of 
Dostoyevsky,  231-32 

Orthodox  Church  in  Lithuania,  5-6; 
laws  of  the,  8  note  ^,  197 ;  dig- 
nitaries of  the,  10;  Dostoyevsky 
and  the,  77-78;  Holy  Week 
Services,  205-6 ;  and  the  Union  of 
the  Nobility,  210;  canonization 
in  the,  210  note  - ;  Tolstoy  and 
the,  228-29;  spread  towai-ds  the 
East,  263-64;  prayers  for  the 
dying,  274-75 

Ostrogesky,  Prince,  5 

Ostrovsky,  270 

Paissy,  Father,  232 

Pana6v,  213 

Paris,  the  Commune  established,  115 

Parliament,   Dostoyevsky's  idea  for 

Russia,  269 
Patriarchate,  suppression,  232,  263 
Patriots,  the,  232-33 
Paul,  palace  of,  29  and  note  ^ 
Pavlovsk,  150,  151 
Pensions,  State,  270  and  note  ^ 
Pereritza  river,  176,  178 
Peter    the    Great,    76-78,    211-12, 


251;  and  the  Tolstoys,  225-26; 
and  the  Patriarchate,  263 

Peter-Paul  fortress,  57,  80 

Petersburg,  family  goes  to,  27; 
salons  of,  43,  238 ;  Jesuits'-  college, 
126  and  note  ^ ;  society  at  begin- 
ning of  nineteenth  century,  211-12 ; 
literary  soirees,  232 

University,     students,      habits 

and  customs,  104,  135-36;  and 
Dostoyevsky,  174,  187;  girl- 
students  and  Dostoyevsky,  185; 
soirees,  241,  243;  and  the  burial 
of  Dostoyevsky,  281-82 

Petrachevsky  conspiracy,  52-61,  85, 
215 ;  treatment  of  the  conspirators, 
87 

meeting  with  Dostoyevsky,  54 ; 

the  circle,  76  and  note  ^ 

Petrovskoe  Academy,  163-65 

Pinsk,  6 

Pitti  Palace,  Florence,  158 

Plescheev,  210 

Plotnikov,  39,  176 

Pobedonoszev,  Constantin,  233,  245, 
283-84 

Poles,  conquest  of  Lithuania,  5-6; 
in  Russia,  14 

Polozk,  1 

Poor  Folks,  Dostoyevsky,  42  and 
note,  43,  45,  47,  69,  71,  99 

Porfiry,  character,  59 

Possessed  (The),  Dostoyevsky,  110, 
165,  166  note  \  174,  176,  216-17 

Prague,  160-61 

Prussian  Junkers,  5  note  ^ 

Pushkin,  stories  and  poems,  27,  201, 
202,  270;  Tolstoy  and,  228;  the 
monument  at  Moscow,  247-57; 
negro  origin,  251-52 

Race-heredity,  the  idea  of,  252 
Racine,  31,  127 
Radwan,  the  Lord  of,  6 
Raskolnikov,  character,  59,   111  and 

note\  119,  174 
Resurrection,  Tolstoy,  223 
Reval,  28,  31  and  note  S  41 
Revolution,    the    Russian,    foreseen 

by     Dostoyevsky,     183,     249-50; 

eifect  of.  263-65 
Riazin,  268 

Riesenkampf,  Dr.,  quoted,  51  note  ^ 
Robinson  Crusoe,  205 
Roger  II  of  Sicily,  204 
Rogneda,  Princess,  204 


INDEX 


293 


Rogogin,  character,  64,  93,  110 

Rogvolod,  1 

Romanoffs,  Lithuanian  origin,  2  note  *, 
15  note  ^ ;  policy  of  the,  261 

Rome,  107,  109,  163 

Rostov,  the  Counts,  history  in  War 
and  Peace,  222-23 

Rostovzov,  General,  57-59 

Roulette  played  by  Dostoyevsky, 
108-9,  109  note  S  150,  155 

Rubinstein,  Anton,  119  note  ^ 

Nicolas,  122 

Rurik,  Prmce,  2  note  ^  74,  204 

Russia,  relations  with  Lithuania, 
4-7;  position  of  the  priests  in, 
9-10;  acquisition  of  languages  by 
the  people,  11-12;  immigration 
and  emigration,  14,  15  note^; 
charm  of  the  Russian  character, 
72-73;  the  aristocracy  and  the 
hereditary  nobles,  208-10,  222-23 ; 
laws  relating  to  land,  225;  Slav 
and  Mongolian  blood  intermingled, 
260-62;  missionary  work  in  the 
East,  262-63 ;  oriental  policy,  263 ; 
effect  of  the  Revolution,  263-65 

Russian  Idea,  the,  explained  by 
Dostoyevsky,  75-77,  103 

legends,  200-201 

Union  of  Hereditary  Nobles,  6, 

19,  208-10,  222-23 

Russian  and  Ludmilla,  opera,  202-3 

Russo-Turkish  War,  220 

Saltikov,  Mihail,  quoted,  44 

Sand,  Georges,  53 

Savelieff,  General,  30  note  ^ 

Schatov,  character,  165 

Schidlovsky,  31  note  ^ 

Schiller,  31,  53;    Robbers,   199-201; 

Schillerian  influence  in  Petersburg, 

211-12 
Schlangenberg,  the,  110 
Schliahetstvo,  19  note  ■^ 
Schliahta,  6,  19,  208 
Schliatitchi,  6 

Scoropadsky,  appeal  of,  10 
Scott,  Walter,  53,  203 
Selo     Stepantchikovo,     Dostoyevsky, 

96-97 
Semenov,  Colonel,  261 

M.  R,  93  note  ^ 

Semipalatinsk,  87-95 
Serfs,  emancipation,  54,  57,  209 
Sevigne,  Mme.  de,  47 
Shestakov,  Mme.,  173 


Siberia,     the     journey     to,     60-61 ; 

impressions,  64-65 
Simplon,  the,  157 

"  Sky,"  the  termination,  14  and  vote  ^ 
Slav  Benevolent  Society,  Dostoyev- 
sky vice-president,  233-34 
Confederation,    the    hope    for 

236 
Slavophils,    Dostoyevsky    and    the 

160,  216-17,  220-21,  226,  233-37; 

and  Pushkin,  247 
Slavs  of  the  Dnieper,   2  note  * ;    in 

Italy,    158-59;    Tolstoy  and  the, 

220,  221,  226;  General  Tcherniaev 

and  the,  233 
Smoke,  Turgenev,  210-11 
Smolny  Institute,  270  note  ^ 

monastery,  131 

Snitkin,     Grigov     Ivanovitch.      See 

Ivanovitch,  M, 
Snitko,  name  of,  126 
Snobbery,  Russian  attitude,  240-41 
Society,    Russian,    at    beginning    of 

nineteenth  century,  211-12 
Sollohub,  Count,  salon,  43,  46,  99 
Solowiev,  Vladimir,  232 
Soltikoffs,  Lithuanian  origin,  15  note  * 
Soltikov,  210 
Staraja    Russa,     39,     175-78,     194, 

248,  258 
State  schools,  27 
Stavrogin,     Nicolai,    character,     166 

note  ^ 
Stellovsky,  publisher,  124,  254 
Stenography  in  Russia,  125 
Stepan,  Bishop,  8-9,  179 
Stockholm  University,  113 
Strahoff,      Nicolai,      biographer      of 

Dostoyevsky,    21    7iote^,    71,    103, 

107-8,  218,  221,  254 
Suchard,  French  school,  19,  21 
Summer  Garden,  the,  29 
Svatkovsky,   Marie,    134,    138,    163; 

children  of,  157 

Professor  Paul,  134,  278 

Swedish  women,  character,  154-55 

Tchermack,  M.,  21;    school    of,  21, 

27,32 
Tchermashnia,  33,  35  and  note  ^ 
Tcherniaev,  General,  233 
Tatar  brutaUty,  212-13 
"  Teuton  "  use  of  the  name,  3  note  ^ 
Teutonic  Knights,  influence,  26 
Theatre,  the  Ukrainian,  12 
Timofey,  character,  176 


294 


INDEX 


Todleben  brothers,  98 

General,  98 

Tolstoy,  Count  Alexis,  his  Russian 
types,  167;  poems  of,  201,  226 
note  2,  238-39 ;  origin,  256 

Count  Fyodor,  226 

Count  Leo,  childhood,  20 ;   and 

the  moujiks,  63;  popularity,  107; 
Dostoyevsky's  relations  with, 
207-8,  218-19;  a  hereditary 
noble,  210;  attitude  towards 
Russia,  219-20;  and  the  Slavs, 
220-21,  226;  Anna  Karenina, 
221,  223,  227  note  ^ ;  social  position, 
222-23;  War  and  Peace,  222-23; 
Resurrection,  223 ;  Germanic  origin, 
225-28,  256;  character,  227-28; 
and  Pushkin,  228;  and  the 
Orthodox  Church,  228-29 

Count  Nicolai,  223 

Count  Peter,  225-26 

Countess,    publication    of    her 

husband's  works,  173  and  nofe^; 
225;  advice  to  her  sons,  220; 
home  of,  224 

Countess  Alexis,  salon,  238-46 

Tolstoyism,  228-29 

Tretiakov,  merchant,  79  and  note  ^ 

Trieste,  160 

Troika,  the  term,  19;  journey  by, 
28  note  ^ 

Tsar,  the  Russian,  his  moral  power, 
78-79;  and  the  Russian  nobility, 
208-9;  the  term,  244  notc^; 
necessity  to  Russia,  249-50 

Tsarevitch,  meaning  of  term,  244 
7iote  ^ 

Tula,  government  of,  18 

Turgenev,  and  Dostoyevsky,  41, 
45  and  note^,  207-8,  213,  216-17; 
and  the  peasants,  63 ;  his  Russian 
types,  167;  a  hereditary  noble, 
210;  Smoke,  210-11;  attacks  on 
Dostoyevsky,  213-14;  changed 
attitude,  215  and  note  ^ ;  and  the 
Pushkin  festival,  228,  247-48; 
origin,  256 ;  reputation,  270 

Tver  on  the  Volga,  98-99;  return 
of  Mme.  Dostoyevsky  to,  100 

Ukrainia,  connection  with  Lithuania 
severed,    4-5;     the    Dostoyevsky 


family   in,    7;     priests   of,    9-10; 

language,  10 ;  the  people's  theatre, 

12;   poetry  of.  12 
Uncle's  Dream   (The),   Dostoyevsky, 

96-97,  267 
Union  of  Hereditary  Nobles,  6,   19, 

208-10,  222-23 

Valaam,  monastery  of,  132 
Valjean,  Jean,  tyj)e,  40,  47 
Vassiletchikov,  Mile.,  99 

Prince  Alexander,  233-34 

Vatihanov,  88 

Veltshaninov,  character,  122 

Venice,  160 

Verhovensky,     character,     165,     166 

note  ^ 
Vevey,  156 
Vidiinas,  W.  St.,  Lithuania  Past  and 

Present,   3,   8-9,    16,   22,   84,    147, 

214  note  ^ 
Vieillegorsky,  Count,  salon,  43,   46; 

his  house  the  scene  of  Netotchka 

Nesvanova,  43-44 

Countess,  44 

Vienna,  160,  161 

Vilna,  153 

Vladimir,  Grand  Duke,  178 

Prince,  legends  of,  201-2 

Volkonsky,  Princess,  223 
Volkovo  cemetery,  277  and  note  - 
Vremya   {The),    103,    106,    108,    110 

note  1,  117,  183  note  -,215  and  note  ^ 

War  and  Peace,  Tolstoy,  222-23 
Wiesbaden,  108-9,  153 
William  the  Conqueror,  15 
Witold,  Grand  Duke,  3,  4 
Women,    Russian   attitude   toAvards, 

241^2 
Wrangel,     Baron,     friendship     with 

Dostoyevsky,    88-90,    92-93,     95, 

213  note  ^ 
Wretched  {The),  Nekrassov,  69-71 

Yasnaia  Poliana,  63,  107,  218,  220, 

224,  227,  228,  256 
Yukovsky,  poet,  255,  256 

Zahleben  family,  characters,  122 
Zapadniki,  Turgenev  and  the,  216-17 
Zossima,  character,  80,  231 
Zubov,       Countess.       See      Heiden, 
Countess, 


J 


L 


